Reconcilable Differences
by Mrs Eyre
Summary: Epilogue - very short; won't take more than two minutes of your time. Honest.
1. Default Chapter

PART ONE  
  
It seemed to Luka that he had slept for only a matter of minutes. A squint at the clock disabused him of this notion. 2.10 am. He'd had a whole two hours sleep. And what had woken him? He listened intently. There. Who in the name of God was knocking on his door at this hour? Someone must have the wrong door. Go away. Please. No, there it was again. Swinging long legs over the side of the bed he sat, head bowed, gathering himself for the effort of answering. Dragging a tee shirt over his head and pulling on his jeans he stood, a little unsteady, and made for the stairs. "Alright, I'm coming!" he called, and then shook his head, realising he had spoken in Croatian. Stiff with sleep his fingers fumbled with the latch before he finally prevailed and swung the door open in the middle of another bout of knocking.  
  
Whatever Luka had been expecting it wasn't this. Abby didn't wait for an invitation but pushed past him, trailing the unmistakable fumes of alcohol behind her. Expelling a deep breath she threw herself onto the couch, head back, eyes closed.  
  
"Did I wake you?"  
  
Not trusting himself to answer Luka stood over her. There are times when it doesn't hurt to state the obvious, and he decided that this was one of those times.  
  
"You're drunk."  
  
"Do you have medical training or something?" she said. "Yes, I'm drunk".  
  
"And you are here because?"  
  
"I wanted to see you." She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. "I haven't been here since ."  
  
"A year. It's been a year."  
  
"Yeah. Well, there you go. Too long, eh? Hey, you got some blinds in here at last! I like them." Her eyes slid closed again.  
  
Luka sighed. "Wait here. I'll put on some shoes and take you home." A sudden thought struck him. "You didn't drive here did you?" No answer. "Abby?"  
  
"No. I didn't drive. I'm not stupid. I took a cab. And I don't want to go home. "  
  
"What is it that you want?"  
  
"I want to go to bed."  
  
"Well. I'll take you home and -"  
  
"No!" she snapped. "With you! I want to go to bed with you."  
  
Jesus Christ.  
  
"I miss you," she went on, softening a little "I miss you."  
  
"Where's Carter?"  
  
"Working"  
  
"Did you .quarrel?"  
  
"Nooo," she laughed, "we didn't quarrel. We fought. Big fight." Luka considered asking what about but decided against it.  
  
"When does he get off?"  
  
"I don't know," she said, wearily. "seven maybe."  
  
OK, Luka. Do something. He headed for the 'phone and dialled; told the desk clerk he wanted to speak to Dr Carter; waited, glancing uneasily at Abby who appeared now to be asleep.  
  
"John Carter" "Carter, It's Luka". The heartbeat's silence which followed was redolent with surprise and alarm.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"It's Abby. She's here and she's been drinking"  
  
"At your apartment? Why?"  
  
"No, not drinking here. She just arrived" Luka turned his head to see Abby rise from the couch and make for the stairs, stumbling a little on her way up. She did not look well.  
  
"Is she alright?" Luka could hear all too clearly that she was far from alright.  
  
"Not really."  
  
"Can I speak to her?"  
  
"No. She's upstairs. Being sick. Do you have your car?"  
  
"Yes"  
  
"Can you come and fetch her?"  
  
"I'm on 'til seven. Can't you get her home?"  
  
"She didn't want me to. But she shouldn't be on her own. She'll have to stay here." That did it.  
  
"Give me half an hour".  
  
Luka put down the 'phone and stood at the foot of the stairs listening. All quiet. At the top of the stairs he pushed the bathroom door open, hoping that her aim was better than her judgment. Nothing. For an insane moment he looked at the window. What if - but it was closed. With a terrible unease nagging him he went into his bedroom; she was sprawled on her back, one leg crooked, snoring slightly.  
  
"Oh, great." Luka said, and returned to the kitchen. A few minutes later he had positioned a bucket by the side of the bed having first taken the precaution of spreading a towel on the floor. He smiled a little, remembering doing the same for Jasna when she was ill. And, really what was the difference? Still, she shouldn't be left alone;. what if she threw up again? He turned her onto her side and pressed his pillows along her back to prevent her from rolling flat again, and then stretched himself cautiously on the bed beside her. No pillows. Luka tried to suppress a laugh. Failed. Dear God, just when you thought that every practical joke in the book had been played on you along came another. If he had ever imagined Abby being back in his bed, and he had, she had generally been conscious. So. Abby drunk in his bed. Carter on his way over. 3.00 am and he was on at seven. The situation was so ghastly it was hilarious. He was almost glad when he heard the doorbell.  
  
Carter didn't meet his gaze when he let him in, but glanced round the room, eyebrows raised.  
  
"Where is she?" Luka nodded towards the stairs. "Come with me." Abby didn't appear to have moved.  
  
"You can lift her? I mean, your back ." Luka stammered.  
  
"Sure. What if she's sick in the car?"  
  
Luka sighed. "I'll come with you. He sat on the end of his bed to put on his shoes. "Give me your keys. I'll drive, and you can call me a cab to get me home." Carter bent over Abby and turned her.  
  
"Come on" he said, "It's all going to be OK". She stirred a little and snaked her arms up and around his neck. Luka was out of the door and half way down the stairs and so didn't hear what she murmered, But Carter did.  
  
"Luka."  
  
  
  
Luka was putting on his coat as Carter came downstairs without Abby.  
  
"What?" he asked, startled.  
  
"You know, I have to get back. I'll come by tomorrow and pick her up." His hand was on the latch and Luka took his arm  
  
"Wait, wait a minute. You mean you're leaving her here?"  
  
"She's out of it. I'll come over after my shift"  
  
"You can't do that! She won't be expecting to see you here!" It was a weak excuse and he knew it. All he had to do was leave Abby a note when he left for work. He did not want her there overnight. Carter looked him in the eye for the first time.  
  
"I can't do this" he said .  
  
"What about her?" Luka asked, incredulous.  
  
"Tell her - tell her I'll see her later." If Carter registered the panic in Luka's face he didn't allow it to influence him; Luka was left staring dumbfounded at the door as it closed behind Carter. Shit. He resisted the impulse to follow and drag Carter back. If the idea of nursing Abby through a night of vomiting and self pity was unappealing the prospect of a confrontation with the younger man bordered on the repellent. "Come on," he told himself "you can do this."  
  
He manoeuvred Abby's sweater over her head and got her out of her jeans without her making so much as a murmur, and then pulled the quilt around her. He lay at her side for three hours, wide awake, reminded even more forcefully of sleepless nights spent with Jasna and Marko when they were babies, trying to engineer a few hours sleep for Danijella. And at 6.00 O'clock he got up, showered, shaved and cleaned his teeth. He dressed quietly, although once he thought she stirred and opened her eyes for a moment. Though he knew that Abby could hear nothing, he closed the door behind him as gently as he could. And before he left he emptied the fridge of the beer he kept there. 


	2. capter 2

PART TWO  
  
Red.  
  
The bucket was red. Abby was pretty sure that she didn't own a red bucket and that if she did she wouldn't be keeping it by the bed. She ventured a look at her surroundings. Clock. Luka's clock; Luka's nightstand; Luka's bedroom; Luka's bed. She knew without looking that he was not in it. Abby sat up and lay down again immediately as a wave of nausea hit her bringing a cold sweat to her brow. Five minutes later she felt safe to try again. Moving more slowly this time she eased herself upright and waited a moment for the pounding in her head to subside. Maybe she could stand. Yes. That wasn't so bad, and she inched toward the bathroom, stopping to lean against the doorframe, exhausted by her exertions and only now registering that she'd been undressed. "Don't think about it" she told herself. She had the advantage of knowing where everything was and was able to shower largely on auto-pilot. But, using Luka's soap, she found herself suddenly surrounded by the scent of him and felt tears start to her eyes at the terrible waste of it all. And as she wrapped a towel around herself and looked for the toothpaste she began to cry in earnest. He had kept her toothbrush.  
  
Luka intercepted Carter in the lounge as he was preparing to leave. Carter refused to meet his gaze, asking only "She OK?"  
  
"She was still sleeping when I left. I left a note to say she should call you." A pause. "What did you argue about?"  
  
"Not your business" Carter said with what sounded like a laugh. "Something and nothing, but not your damned business. Not any more" He turned to Luka with that and smiled, eyebrows raised. Luka supposed that this was to denote irony, and was not to be so easily deterred.  
  
"Is this new? The drinking?" Carter didn't answer at all this time. Why wouldn't this bastard leave him alone?  
  
"You need to talk to her"  
  
"Coming from you that's almost funny" retorted Carter. Luka ran a hand across tired eyes.  
  
"Look, like it or not, she came to me. She shouldn't have. I'm sure she knows that, but it was lucky it was me and not someone she met in a bar. She's putting herself at risk every time she's out alone like this."  
  
"Keep out of it, Kovac," Carter said, shortly, "she's my business now."  
  
"Go and talk to her!" Luka called after him. But he didn't know if he'd been heard. It seemed to have been a very long time since he'd been heard.  
  
She felt a little better once she had showered, and cried and dressed. She made coffee, took the Tylenol which Luka had left out for her and picked up the note from the counter. "Abby, please call John. I will be in Doc Magoo's at 12.30 and would like to talk to you. L" She smiled at the curiously slanting hand. When first they were together she had joked that he even wrote with an accent. "Please call John". Well, yes. She had begun to piece together her recollection of the previous evening.  
  
"8 O'clock meeting?" he had asked as she left work.  
  
"Sure."  
  
But she hadn't gone and when her 'phone rang at 8.30 she had picked it up without thinking.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"You didn't go." Carter. Shit.  
  
"Are you checking up on me?" His anger and disappointment were palpable in the silence that followed.  
  
"You said you'd go"  
  
"I was too tired. You're checking up on me?"  
  
"You said you'd go" he repeated, more slowly as though he were speaking to a child or a foreigner. Or an idiot. "Why do you do this?"  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Let me down. Let yourself down" he amended hastily.  
  
"Is this about you?"  
  
"Do you know what it's costing me, going through this?"  
  
"It is about you."  
  
"Why not? Do I not matter? I have a right -"  
  
"You just stop right there you son of a bitch. You stop this now. You aren't my keeper and you do not have any right to check up on me!"  
  
"Abby, all I want is for you to make the effort. I did it."  
  
"Crap. You never bought into any of it! You went because you had to"  
  
"But I went"  
  
"You're not going now!"  
  
"I'm not using now."  
  
"And I'm not drinking now! It's been six months since I had a drink!"  
  
"But you want to"  
  
"Of course I want to! I'm an alcoholic!"  
  
"So you should go"  
  
"To make you feel better?" Silence for a moment. She heard him sigh. This was a bad idea; she should have hung up straight away.  
  
"Look, Abby, all I'm saying is you should go, and I can say that because I know how you feel"  
  
"No, you don't. You do not. No-one does. Jesus Christ, at least Luka never pretended to be able to read my mind." She stopped there, her words mocking her.  
  
"Luka never understood anything" Carter said shortly, "You said as much yourself. We do. We're made of the same stuff."  
  
"You know, I don't want to have this conversation. And you should leave Luka out of this."  
  
"You brought it up! I don't want to talk about him; I never did." Abby realised at that moment that she was bored with this whole sorry scene.  
  
"I have to go."  
  
"Why, do you have some place to be?"  
  
"I have to go. We'll talk tomorrow"  
  
"Abby don't do this to me. Don't hang up!"  
  
She hung up  
  
  
  
She had made tea then, hands shaking with fury. Carter. Carter hadn't trusted her to keep her word. Losing sight of the fact that he'd been right, she cursed him. This wasn't how she had imagined it. Their easy banter, the instinctive understanding she thought they shared had evaporated the minute they'd slept together. And then there was the sex. It was . ok. It was pleasant. Perhaps she'd been spoilt. Whatever the shortcomings of her relationship with Luka the sex had never been anything less than exhilarating. But they'd been out on sync with each other in almost all other respects. Except when they weren't. Except for those odd times when they'd got it right and fallen into step with each other. But they never stopped to think about what it was that had made it right, and floundered on until they happened on it again, as if by chance. And now, on some nights as Carter slept beside her, she missed Luka so much it hurt; and she missed Carter. This wasn't working.  
  
She didn't remember deciding to find a bar, only going in and ordering a beer which became three beers and then a shot of vodka which became a series of doubles. Fuck Carter. She'd show him that he couldn't control this. Couldn't control her.  
  
And she didn't remember at what point she had decided to root Luka out. She used almost all her remaining cash on a cab, and had wondered what she would do if her were not there.  
  
Sitting on the El courtesy of the handful of loose change she'd found in Luka's bedroom she cringed, hot with shame, when she recalled what she'd said to him. "I want to go to bed with you." And the worst of it was that she'd meant it then. But this was nothing to the shame engulfing her at Luka's having seen her in that state. He'd never seen her like that, should never see her like that. She knew for a certainty that if there was one person in the world she didn't want to see her drunk it was Luka. Her mother, Richard, Carter, OK. But oh, not Luka. She felt as though she had contaminated him. She hadn't told him about her drinking when they were together, and so she knew that he had never looked at her then and seen an alcoholic. She felt that she remained somehow clean to him. "Not any more" she muttered "Way to go, Abby."  
  
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	3. Chapter 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Part Three  
  
The sun on the lake was dazzling. Carter had sat staring over the water since the end of his shift. He was barely aware of the people around him, of the sights and sounds of lakeside Chicago on a perfect August day. He felt faintly nauseous and knew that he should eat something, but the inertia which had settled on him over the past two hours was now overwhelming.  
  
"Luka."  
  
It had been unmistakable. He'd tried to rationalize it. Kovac was the last person she'd seen before passing out, she must have thought that it was him turning her, speaking softly into her ear. His anguish intensified when he thought of how often Kovac must have roused her from sleep, how many times she had woken in his bed, in his arms, how often she had given herself to him. But she hadn't been happy with Luka, he knew that for a fact. It was Carter she turned to when she needed a sympathetic ear, him she had laughed with. He knew her, understood her, and had loved her for so long that he could barely remember a time when he hadn't. What was it she had seen in Kovac, to have stayed with him for a year? The man was a memento mori; death hung about him like cheap scent. "Sad and dark"? Well he had that in spades. Carter had never liked him. He'd disliked him on sight. His complete - what was it? - virility, masculinity, irritated him. A creature with no music in his soul. Except that he knew that wasn't true. He'd watched appalled as both Susan and Abby had gazed, spellbound, at the Croat as he delivered his little party piece from Hamlet; hell, even Gallant had been bewitched. And then that little self deprecating smile had completed Carter's humiliation. He'd wished he could undo the whole day and cringed at the recollection of his own conduct. Still, at the end of it all Susan had released him and had spoken words which were balm to his soul, urging him to claim Abby. And in the end he had, and she hadn't turned him away. Even Luka's quiet, insistent presence had been unable to quell his spirits then. Quiet. If he were to be honest it was this that made the older man a thorn in Carter's flesh. For all the horror which he had purportedly endured there was a quietude, a centredness about him which Carter found galling. He hadn't turned to drink, or to drugs; he had loved his wife and his children, and spoke affectionately of his father. He'd known happiness. And Carter hated him for it.  
  
He wished he had a cigarette. If Abby were here he'd cadge one from her, as he did from time to time. Abby. She'd come to him repeatedly when she was with Luka. He'd known it was only a matter of time. And yet, when he'd had his chance he'd known too that he didn't want Kovac in their bed with them, and he'd turned from her with something akin to disgust, seeking out Susan to ease his pain. It hadn't worked. Of course it hadn't.  
  
Damn it. He stood and approached the woman seated on the adjoining bench.  
  
"Excuse me, but could you spare a cigarette?" She eyed him speculatively.  
  
"Sure"  
  
Carter took the cigarette and accepted a light. Nodding his thanks he returned to his seat, and missed the disappointment which flashed across her face. The nicotine conspired with his hunger to make him light headed.  
  
And when he had finally taken Abby into his embrace and kissed her he had felt sure that at last all the pieces of his life would fall into place. He shook his head and smiled, wondering now at his naivety. He'd stopped her drinking, he had. She'd done that for him he told himself. Their torn souls had seemed to fit together with a kind of ghastly symmetry: her mother, his mother; her drinking, his addiction, her need, his need. For a while it had worked. They'd continued to laugh, to tease, to put one another down, knowing it was safe. But he had been haunted by a vague sense of disquiet underpinning his happiness. He missed Mark, he realised. Mark, a man not so very many years older than himself, dead. But he too had known happiness and his presence was still tangible in the ER. And himself? He had felt like a teenager, felt his peers' discomfiture, felt keenly the disadvantage at which his addiction had put him. And, contrary to what he'd expected, being with Abby hadn't helped that.  
  
And then there was the sex. It was . OK. After the first time he had always felt that Abby was somehow not there. He'd been suspicious, wondering if she was thinking of Luka's hands and mouth on her, Luka moving inside her. He'd had to stop thinking like that. They would simply have to work at it. After all, they knew one another, understood. You couldn't have everything.  
  
Carter flicked his cigarette end away and watched as it smouldered on the ground.  
  
He knew all the rules of course. Recovering addicts shouldn't form new romantic attachments for at least a year after embarking on recovery. But they were different. Their attachment was there, if undeclared, already. Benton had done it for him, rubbed his nose in his own dirt, and it had worked. After a fashion. He had been desperate to prove to them all that he could do it, and do it he had. And Abby had been there for him. Until Kovac. He remembered the night they'd returned to the ER, their attacker dying on a gurney, Carter and Corday unable to save him. And through it all, all he'd been able to think was that she'd backed out of going to a meeting with him to be with Kovac. His hatred of the man had crystallized there and then.. He'd been angry that after her neighbour had attacked her she'd gone to Kovac. What after all was the difference between him and the man on the gurney? Between him and the man who had beaten her? And when he had seen her in her apartment, beer in hand, he had been afraid. If she could turn back, what might he do?  
  
He'd cracked, finally, and confronted Kovac, angrily demanding to know how he could allow her to drink whilst in his care. And still the man and been immovable. It wasn't until later, when his rage had abated, that he'd entertained the possibility that Luka had not known. About Abby. About her drinking. And when he grasped it as a truth he felt vindicated. She hadn't told this man with whom she had shared her bed and her body. He had known what Luka had not, and he had felt a curious sort of pride in that. And he could help her, make things right as Luka could not. She had resisted at first, but in the end the days without a drink had turned to weeks and then to months.  
  
Until last night. 


	4. Chapter 4

Luka was by no means certain that he wanted to find that Abby had responded to his request to talk to her. His head hurt and he had twice found himself asleep on his feet in the course of what had been, thankfully, a quiet morning. He could have lived without the seven year old who had tried to bite him and without the young man with the twisted ankle who had hit on him repeatedly until he had begged Chen to take over. All he really wanted was to get to the end of his shift and reclaim the sleep of which he had been robbed the previous night. And he hoped fervently that Abby didn't remember all of last night.  
  
But, there she was, looking very small, wreathed in cigarette smoke. She'd ordered him coffee already he saw, and he slid into the seat opposite her. Awkward didn't begin to describe the silence between them. Finally he took a deep breath and broke it.  
  
"How are you feeling?"  
  
"Just peachy" she cracked, but then thought better of her sarcasm and said "Better than I should, considering." Luka nodded; waited.  
  
"I'm sorry. About last night. I didn't set out to cause you problems."  
  
"This isn't about me" he said, waving a hand dismissively. She found herself fascinated by his hands.  
  
"Well, showing up last night - I shouldn't have." She laughed a little. "I don't know why I did, really."  
  
"Don't you?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Know why you did it?" His voice was very low and his eyes on her unwavering. Oh, God, where was this going. He surely wasn't going to bring up what she'd said. She didn't answer.  
  
"There's a question I want to ask you." he said. "I should have asked you sooner, but I didn't know how."  
  
"What? What is it?"  
  
"When would - " he stopped. Tried again "Would you ever have told me?" His eyes were downcast and she realised now how much she had always read in them.  
  
"Told you what?" She already knew what was coming.  
  
"About your drinking."  
  
Abby closed her eyes. "Luka -"  
  
"Because I don't think you could have done anything more - " he paused here, searching for the right word. His accent had thickened as it always did at moments of stress or emotion. " - calculated to keep me at a distance. But maybe that was the whole point." His voice was so quiet that Abby had to lean in towards him to catch his words. He looked up then, capturing her gaze and she was shocked at the pain she saw in his eyes. Her turn to look away.  
  
"No."  
  
"No?"  
  
"I don't know how to - to explain myself."  
  
"I think you should try". There was a slight edge to his voice now. Abby took a deep breath. "Because if you didn't know there was a part of my life where it wasn't true."  
  
"You didn't think that maybe I ought to know? Did you consider my feelings at all?" She hung her head.  
  
"No."  
  
"You told Carter."  
  
"No. No, not really. He saw me at a meeting is all. Busted." She tried to laugh.  
  
"I see."  
  
A gust of temper shook her. "You see? What do you see?"  
  
"Why you were . drawn to him."  
  
Abby sighed. If he'd been angry she would have felt better.  
  
"You and me, we were never much on talking, were we?" she ventured. Luka raised his eyebrows. "I mean, our timing was off. Really off."  
  
"Timing?"  
  
"Yeah. You couldn't talk at the beginning because of . well, everything. And when you could . " Her words trailed off.  
  
"It was too late." He continued for her.  
  
"I think I knew how much pain you were in. I did, I did know. But I was used to that. My mother got me real used to that, it was meat and drink to me. And I learned you don't mess with it. You leave well alone. And then later . I'm not used to being helped, Luka. I don't know how to do that stuff, I never did."  
  
"Carter helped you; helps you now" Abby gave a little laugh. "Doesn't he?" She looked him in the eye then, her chin raised a little defiantly. But she didn't answer. "The thing is, Abby, I'm not going to do this."  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Be a stick for you to beat Carter with. Or yourself with come to that."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You know very well what you said to me last night." Dear God. "So, next time you decide to drink - or do anything else - to spite him just leave me out of it." Abby stared open mouthed at him. "It's not good for me and God knows it's not good for you either."  
  
"Oh! So this is about what's good for me?"  
  
"It always was"  
  
"Ha! Tough love."  
  
She had been struggling with the wrapping on a fresh pack of cigarettes and almost wept with frustration when her lighter refused to spark. Luka watched her impassively for a moment and then sighed and reached across to take the cigarette and lighter from her. "Hey!" she protested. But Luka put the cigarette between his own lips. She hated him with a passion when the lighter worked first time for him. He took the drag and handed the cigarette back to her, exhaling. Abby was so astonished that she laughed aloud.  
  
"You don't - "  
  
"I used to ." he said dismissively. "Well, I guess that's your problem."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Love." The word dropped between them like a stone. Abby couldn't speak. Luka suddenly felt tired unto death. "So drink" he said, wearily "or don't drink, that's your call. But you know what?" he tweaked the cigarette from her fingers and inhaled. "I'll love you anyway. Because that's not your call." He stood up and returned the cigarette to her. "That's mine." 


	5. Chapter 5

Part V  
  
"Shit". Luka's hands were shaking as he left the diner, the taste of the cigarette both strange and familiar filling his mouth. What was it he'd just done? That wasn't what he'd intended at all, no, not at all. He should go back, tell her what he had set out to say. To take care, to stay away from bars, to drink at home if she must drink at all. To call Carter. He turned around and took a step. Stopped. Took another, and another.  
  
She didn't seem to have moved, the cigarette, now ash entirely, still between her fingers.  
  
"Abby."  
  
She looked up at him, confusion and anxiety plain on her face. "Don't worry about - any of that. You should call Carter. He'll be worried about you." She didn't answer, looking at him as though he had spoken in a foreign language and for a crazed moment he wondered if he had. "Abby?"  
  
"Yes. I'll call him."  
  
"And - just - take care." Oh, but he had not the heart for the rest of it, and this time when he left he kept on walking.  
  
It was only when she felt the remains of the cigarette hot against her fingers that Abby came to herself. "I could have told him" she muttered, "I could have told him." Over and over again. She closed her eyes and threw back her head, trying not to cry. "I should have trusted him." As she knew he had trusted her. With Carter, with her privacy, her walls; realised she had always trusted him. Except for that, except for that. And now? There had been no recriminations, no oblique criticism of Carter, no contempt for her cheap move on him last night. For the first time she wondered what she would have done if he had taken her up on it; wondered what, if he had, she would have been feeling today, and she was overcome by an intense longing for him.  
  
He had said that he loved her, would love her despite herself. She didn't understand, it, didn't understand him and worse, didn't understand herself. But he didn't know the half of it she thought. Her abortion. Nicole. Ah, how long could she carry that secret? He hadn't loved Nicole, that much had been clear. Her own motives she had characterized as pure. "Maybe you don't want to see him happy" the Frenchwoman had said. How true was that? Her stomach had turned at the prospect of him tied to that woman, but why? Because he was a good man, a decent man, probably the only really decent man she'd ever known. And because she couldn't let go.  
  
Carter. Carter was decent, wasn't he? She had kept quiet when Carter sought to belittle Luka, to impugn his integrity, uneasy as she had been. Luka set the standard in decency if she was truthful, and she acknowledged that she and truthfulness had been strangers for a long time. Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone "Ain't that the truth." She said aloud, only then aware that the waitress stood beside her, offering her more coffee which she accepted because she didn't think she had the wherewithal to leave.  
  
She no longer knew what she felt. There was Carter; her friend, her confidant and now her lover. And there was Luka. She realised there had always been Luka. Luka who had suffered so much and who had gone on to suffer even more at her hands, and she was suddenly ashamed of that. She had watched his struggle, watched his agony and had been quietly fascinated by the anger and rage which he kept so carefully battened down beneath his good nature, but which had been instrumental in forging their relationship. It was clear to her now that it had been his misery which had drawn her in. Here was a man more scarred than she, and she had revelled in it.  
  
What had it cost him to love her? To leave his wife behind? To try again? More than she had known, she realised; more than she had cared to know. And he had loved her; did love her. She laughed suddenly, recognising the precise moment at which she had decided on the course of action which would lead inevitably to his rejection of her. Her mother. Maggie, standing at her door. That night she had loved him, for his quiet support, for his strength. She had known that they would make love and that it would be something special. They hadn't of course. She had gone on to decide, that self same night, that she would never again allow him to get so close to her. "I'm not going to do this" he had said, and she made another decision. "Neither am I." 


	6. Chapter 6

Part VI.  
  
6.45 pm; 15 minutes to the end of his shift and nothing on the board. And then, like the work of some malevolent sprite, 14 wedding guests whose capacity for strong drink vastly outstripped their capacity for rational thought were brought in in varying states of cuts and bruising. Swearing and gesticulating they strained to get at each other until one of them succeeded in catching Chen with a right cross to the jaw and sent her sprawling. Luka lost it. "Call Security" he told Haleh before taking hold of the two main antagonists who he gathered were the bride's father and groom's brother by the scruff of the neck and all but lifted them from their feet, one in either hand. "Enough!" he shouted at the top of his voice. The bickering stopped instantly. "Bride's family!" he continued as the two men struggled in his grasp. "Step forward!" Six by now rather sheepish looking individuals did so, and one of the men he was holding said "Me!". Luka let him go. "Yosh; trauma 1 and keep them there." They followed Yosh meekly without a murmur. "Groom's family." He felt like a wedding photographer. "Sit in those chairs and fill out these forms." His other captive followed his relatives. Luka turned to Chen.  
  
"You OK?"  
  
"Yes, fine. Bit of a mis-hit." she laughed, rubbing her jaw.  
  
"We should get an X-ray and head CT."  
  
"No, it's not necessary, really. I just need an ice pack for my jaw. And my butt."  
  
Luka nodded. OK, go."  
  
"What's the problem?" asked the security guard, looking round at the now peaceful admit area.  
  
"You're a little late. Keep an eye on chairs and don't let any of them near trauma 1." He turned to find Haleh regarding him levelly.  
  
"You missed your vocation, Dr. Kovac," she said., eyebrows raised. Luka smiled ruefully.  
  
"Maybe." "No maybe about it. Reminds me of sorting out my kids ." She stopped, realising what she had said.  
  
"Transferrable skills" he said, keenly aware of her discomfort. "You might want to supervise the form filling. I don't hold out much hope of them being legible." Turning away from the desk he saw a single remaining guest. "Bride or groom?"  
  
"Neither."  
  
"What?" A pause.  
  
"Gatecrasher." the man said and promptly threw up all over Luka's shoes. The silence that followed found Haleh holding her breath, "Call housekeeping" said Luka quietly and headed for the mens room.  
  
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
  
Why do I do this? Luka asked himself as he cleaned the last of the foul smelling mess from his shoes. He kept a spare pair in his locker - everyone did - but really. He didn't need this, not today. Especially not today. What is it with me and vomit, he wondered, remembering Abby. At least she'd made it to the bathroom he thought sourly. What was she doing now? Having changed his shoes he returned to admit in time to see Carter arriving for his shift. He looked ghastly and Luka took a grim sort of satisfaction in the knowledge that he had obviously had no more sleep than he had himself. Damn. He'd forgotten that he'd be handing over to him, now an Attending. Carter emerged from the lounge and waited, not looking at Luka.  
  
"Wedding party from hell, 14 in all, mostly cuts and bruises, but they seem to have been throwing punches so you might want to look out for injuries to the hand. They're separated at the moment in chairs and Trauma1. I think you should keep it that way."  
  
"Fine."  
  
"And keep an eye on Chen.. She took a blow to the jaw."  
  
"She OK?" Carter asked, clearly concerned.  
  
"No loc and she's turned down X-ray and head CT but I think it would be a good idea to pursue it."  
  
"Fine." Again.  
  
"And that's it. Enjoy." Luka moved away but heard Carter say "You got a minute?"  
  
"I'm off"  
  
"I know. I need to talk to you."  
  
"Aren't you going to be kind of busy?"  
  
"Chen's here." Luka raised his eyebrows "And Susan. Give me half an hour to look the board over properly and I'll find you across the road." Against his better judgment Luka consented. This was all he needed.  
  
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000  
  
It was almost unbearably hot in Doc Magoos. He was beginning to hate this place. He felt slightly panicked at the remembrance of his earlier conversation here with Abby. Had she spoken to Carter, told him of it? He hoped to God that she hadn't. His attention was drawn by a cup of coffee being set down on the table and he turned to see Carter.  
  
"Everything under control?"  
  
Carter looked at him sharply, suspecting a double meaning. "Yes. Susan's got it tied down." Luka nodded. Waited. Nothing.  
  
"So." He prompted. "Abby. She call you?"  
  
"No. Not yet."  
  
"You call her?"  
  
"No." Carter's innards were churning. He needed to know what Kovac's reaction would be to knowing that she had spoken his name, but would rather have died than divulge the information. "She's been sober. She has. I worked with her."  
  
"So what happened?"  
  
"You don't need to know that." He paused. "What I want to say is that I want you to stay away from her. I don't want you meddling with this. She doesn't need you around her. You're not good for her. She's with me now, and you need to get that into your head. I understand her. I know what she's going through. I don't want you . complicating things. You're part of what got her here, and I'm telling you to back off."  
  
The arrogance of Carter's little speech took Luka's breath away.  
  
"Well, I'm glad we're all clear about what you feel."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I thought you wanted to talk about Abby." Carter flinched a little at that. Kovac didn't know what he felt; didn't know his fear.  
  
"You can't fix her, Carter."  
  
"I don't need you to tell me that." Luka wanted to slap him then, wanted badly to tell him what she'd said last night and was starting to wish he'd taken her up on it. He cut off that line of thought promptly.  
  
"But apparently you do. You can't do this for her."  
  
Carter stared unseeingly out of the window. He had a sudden insane desire to spill his guts to Kovac. Knew he couldn't. Knew that if this were to make sense to the other man he would have to. Still knew he couldn't and secretly suspected that Kovac already knew. Hated him the more for it.  
  
"And fixing her won't fix you" Luka continued. This was too much.  
  
"You know nothing about - " he had been about to say "me" but said instead "it." Luka was tired of this and finished the last of his coffee.  
  
"OK. Have it your way. But just remember," he said, standing up, "she didn't drink while she was with me. Something back then stopped her." And he knew what it was too, knew that his ignorance had in a perverse way empowered her. Carter's suffering was acute, he could see that, and he relented a little. "Just do right by her." Carter laughed.  
  
"Like you?"  
  
"No. Like you." He turned to go,  
  
"Kovac." Luka turned back to him. "I love her."  
  
"I know."  
  
"She needs me."  
  
"Then you'll be just fine, won't you?" Carter was silent for a moment.  
  
"Stay out of it." Luka left without answering.  
  
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000  
  
For the third time that day Luka left the diner in a state of acute agitation. He'd handled that badly he told himself and Abby was no better off as a result of it. Perhaps Carter had understood some of what he had said. He felt that in fact he had. But he shouldn't have squared up to Carter like that; this wasn't a competition. "The hell it isn't" he said, surprised that he had spoken aloud. He hardly trusted himself to drive but couldn't endure the press of people on the El and drove anyway, wishing he could just put his foot down and keep going.  
  
He should eat, he thought. His finger hovered over the CD rack. Schubert, in tune with his mood. He wished his father were there. Sometimes the yearning to speak his own language was almost painful in its intensity, the need to speak English every day exhausting. There were times when he conducted entire conversations with Danijella just for the relief of it.  
  
"What do you think, sweetheart; what should I do?" There was no answer; there never was. It had been so easy with her. She had been made for him. Tiny; she had been tiny, as small as Abby, but so full of love for him that sometimes he had laughed aloud with the joy of it all. Not that they hadn't fought. He knew himself, knew that when he loved he loved with everything he had and knew too that that wasn't always easy to live with; it needed strength to deal with that. But she had matched him, and when the babies were born he knew that there was no greater perfection to which he could aspire. He had no need for anything but them then, no need for his God even. And God had grown jealous and vengeful and had taught him a lesson more bitter than he could have imagined.  
  
He barely remembered the time after their deaths and before he left Croatia. He'd seen fearful things, things no-one should have to see, known hunger and pain and danger. It didn't matter, any of it. They were gone and his life had ceased to make any sense to him. He'd been a fool to think he could run from it of course. It followed him but least once he had left there had been fewer reminders. He'd had his work and took a curious kind of comfort in the death of his desire for anything else. Until Carol. She'd awoken long forgotten yearnings for family, a home, and had made him wonder if he might once more have them. But she'd gone, leaving him high and dry and wondering again what the point of it all was. Maybe he'd had his share of happiness. Danijella, Jasna, Marko, love that few enough people ever had. Why should he imagine that he'd be granted that more than once? Abby had caught him unawares. OK, if he couldn't have love like that again might he at least have an approximation of it? She had seemed sweet, funny, clever, a little sad and he was flattered by her unexpected advances. He had felt his way through their night out together, had kissed her experimentally and his spirits had been high. See where it goes, Luka, take it easy, don't expect too much, just have a little fun. And a pleasant evening had ended with him holding her hand, easy banter, the idea of more hovering just on the fringes of his thoughts.  
  
And death. He should have known. His defences were down, and there were other feelings waiting to be released too. The rage and vengefulness had surfaced and transformed him, and as he'd struck their attacker's head against the ground over and over again he'd seen in his face the faces of the men who had taken his life and broken it into pieces.  
  
He'd known then that it was hopeless, that he was poison. Abby hadn't understood, had pursued him because she had not seen the mark of the Beast which he now knew to have been set upon him. And he'd been weak, seeking to forget himself in her warmth. It had been so long . He'd done wrong, he knew. Saw the hurt and confusion in her face as he'd withdrawn into himself, hoping against hope that she'd go, hoping against hope that she'd stay. His rediscovery of the oblivion which was to be had from a womans body had stunned him. And she'd been so warm, so soft, so desirous.  
  
But he didn't know her, didn't recognise her neediness, not until it was too late and they had assiduously built up their walls, wary of one another, their only real connection in the dark of the night. Oh, but that had been sweet, and every time, he had allowed himself to believe that they could do this, could learn to know each other. And every time, when the morning came they were as distant as ever. He should have ended it, let her go, but he hadn't and in the end they had both paid the price, in bitterness and recrimination and shame.  
  
"Making love with me makes you think of a priest with Lupus?" she'd laughed in the dark of the morning. Ah, no. Making love with her had made him think of what life might have to give as he watched her. The life that the Bishop was slowly letting go. Bishop Stewart had opened up his wounds, wounds that he carried like stigmata, wounds that he cherished, and he had dared him to look at himself. In the end he'd unburdened himself to the dying man, aware that he'd acted as his confessor only a short while before. He'd made him conceive of death and beauty in the same instant, to know that they existed side by side, that there could not be one without the other. This was the human condition and his losses should make him more keenly aware of grasping what was offered to him. Danijella, Jasna, Marko; what had their deaths, their lives meant if he chose spiritual and emotional death himself. And now there was Abby.  
  
It had come too late of course. She'd long since ceased to look to him for comfort. And in his heart he'd known. When her mother exploded in spectacular techicolour into their midst she'd pushed him away. For a brief moment, after her mother's committal hearing he had thought that there was hope, thought that perhaps they had crossed their Rubicon, but the moment had passed and it never presented itself again. After that she'd shared his bed but not her thoughts, not her heart. She'd never again trusted him with herself.  
  
Schubert. It matched his mood. "Death And The Maiden."  
  
It was almost funny. 


	7. Chapter 7

Part VII  
  
She'd put it off for too long she knew, but Abby was dreading the encounter, the explanations, the reproach which she knew would be in Carter's eyes. It had been obvious when she rang that he had been waiting for her call, and he had rejected outright the idea of talking over lunch somewhere. She knew he didn't have a shift the next day and groaned inwardly at the idea that this might go on into the night. Not of course that they had the option of going to his place, she thought bitterly. The few visits she had made to his family home had not been encouraging, his grandmother perfectly polite but evincing no warmth toward her. She'd wondered then about his family, the opulence of their surroundings in stark contrast to the frigidity she knew existed between him and his parents. At least her early years had been peppered with the excitement of her mother's manic episodes, with thrilling escapades into the ludicrous. It was only later when the sinister nature of these episodes had become clear and she had learned to expect the inevitable aftermath that she had come to dread them, to draw closer to Eric and to hope that perhaps this time would be different. It never was, of course and in the end she learned to regard her mother as a collection of symptoms to be managed and, when that was not possible, to be avoided. She'd often wondered whether that was really why she'd decided to become a doctor; to foster the belief that people could be fixed. They can't be fixed; she wasn't fixed herself, even now.  
  
Carter had spent increasing periods of time at her apartment in the year that they'd been together. She never felt able to ask him to go, to tell him that she needed her privacy. It struck her as ironic that Luka had always known when to make himself scarce, because they'd guarded their privacy so well even when they were together. In the past year she'd found most of her privacy at work, at least when her shifts hadn't coincided with Carter's. His need to have her near him was becoming claustrophobic and she sometimes felt as though she was under surveillance. It wasn't that she didn't want him there, only . She remembered the time she had spent at Luka's apartment after Brian. She'd surprised herself by taking him up on his offer knowing only that she would feel absolutely safe with him. It had been awkward for her at first, not least because she remembered the last time she'd been there, with Carter. Then the place had been largely empty; now it was his home, comfortable, stylish. Another surprise. She liked it, she liked being there and had been taken unawares by the regret she felt when the time came for her to leave. Shame nagged at her at the thought that she'd been drinking under his roof. He'd never questioned her about why she, who never drank before, was drinking now; perhaps he assumed it was just to get her through a bad patch; perhaps he thought he hadn't the right. And she couldn't tell him, not then.  
  
There had been times, during those weeks, that she'd lain awake, knowing he slept upstairs, wanting nothing more than to have him hold her, to find again the forgetfulness that she had found in his body before. She couldn't do it of course.  
  
"You don't have to talk" she'd told him that first time. And he hadn't, not then and not later. She wondered now whether he had felt she didn't want him to. He'd have been right. She didn't want to hear him speak about his wife, their children, the war. After their first night out she felt that she knew as much as she wanted to. Sometimes, after they'd made love she'd feel able to venture a question and Luka, his guard down, would talk a little, tell her tiny inconsequential things about his life. She knew he'd been happy, had loved and been loved. It was more than she could say and she'd felt a kind of shame in the comparison.  
  
Well, what was the point thinking about it now? They'd settled into a more distant friendship since she'd been with Carter, cordial, cheerful, nothing more. What more could there be, she wondered. She had wondered. Abby sometimes felt as though a distorting glass has been removed from between them, as though she saw him clearly for the first time and sometimes she could not bear to look, fearful of what she might see, what she might feel. She remembered an incident, before she and Carter were together. A lab technician had come down with some test results - she was new and had been sent out to see where the ER was and what it did. She'd been chatting amiably with Abby when she stopped abruptly and said under her breath.  
  
"And who are you?"  
  
Abby followed her gaze to where Luka sat in chairs, speaking softly to an elderly woman brought in by her daughter, confused and frightened. Luka often got those patients.  
  
"Dr. Kovac. Luka." she said, amused.  
  
"Luka. Married?" The tech was looking at him as though he were a menu.  
  
"Nope"  
  
"Attached?"  
  
"No" The technician grimaced a little. "Gay?"  
  
"Er .no" Abby had laughed, absurdly proud of knowing that for a fact.  
  
"Then what?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Nasty piece of work? There must be something wrong with him."  
  
"No, no he's a nice guy. It's just that he's a little . complicated."  
  
"Complicated? Well, complicated can be good. Interesting at least."  
  
"Oh, he's that alright." Another laugh, more ambivalent this time. The technician turned to her suddenly  
  
"You seem to know a lot about him."  
  
"We, well we dated for a while"  
  
"Wow. Lucky you. Still, must be tricky."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Working with him."  
  
"No, not really. Like I said, he's a nice guy." And I don't want to talk about this anymore. It was Luka himself who came to her rescue, motioning to her to assist with his elderly patient. And Abby had felt a couple of inches taller as she'd left with him, feeling the technician's appreciative gaze on them.  
  
Ah, well, that was then. She was with Carter now. She remembered how awkward she had felt when knowledge of their relationship became common currency in the ER; had registered Luka's look of mild surprise and felt his almost immediate distancing of himself from her. Cordial, cheerful. Cool.  
  
She'd expected things to be easier with Carter, had thought wistfully of the possibility when she was with Luka, had even approached him, only to be turned down. He'd been right of course; she still had Luka in her blood then. But her and Carter, they'd understood each other so well, and at the beginning it had been a delight. It was only later as she felt herself pulled into the undercurrent of his need that she had started to panic. It hadn't taken long for her to realise the magnitude of his need for her to succeed in weaning herself from the bottle again, and initially it had provided her with the impetus she needed. But it wasn't enough. The meetings, the endless mind numbing meetings, sometimes with him, sometimes not, but always playing a part, feeling the need to smile reassuringly and to accept his reassuring smiles in return. She had wanted to scream. And she had wanted a drink.  
  
Carter's knock at her door made her start.  
  
"How are you feeling?" No kiss. No hug of greeting. He was wary of her.  
  
"Fine. Now. Not so hot yesterday." His look said "Are you surprised?" more eloquently than his words would have.  
  
"Look," she said, "it was a stupid thing to do. I thought I had it under control, but - " she faltered  
  
"But?"  
  
"I was angry."  
  
"You were angry?"  
  
"I felt pressured"  
  
"Which is why you should have gone to the meeting."  
  
"Should doesn't help anyone." she said, exasperated. Neither of them had sat down, but stood in her kitchen, not touching, not really looking at each other. "Do you - do you want some tea?" Absurd.  
  
"No! I do not want any tea."  
  
"The thing is . the thing is that I think I need to be on my own for a while."  
  
"You've been talking to Kovac."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Haven't you?"  
  
"Yes. Yesterday. I thought I owed him an apology."  
  
"You don't owe him anything. I've been talking to him too." Oh, God. Abby had a bad feeling about this. "I told him to keep out of it."  
  
Abby laughed. "I don't think he needs you to tell him that actually."  
  
"You don't? After what you said at his place, you don't think that maybe I should just make sure?" Abby was stunned; Luka had told him.  
  
"What I said?"  
  
"When I tried to pick you up to get you home. You said his name. Clear as day."  
  
Abby was shocked to learn this but simultaneously ridiculously happy. He hadn't told Carter. "I'd just then been talking to him is all." You don't know the half of it.  
  
"Really? How helpful had he been to you?"  
  
"Don't be disgusting."  
  
"You'll forgive me for wondering."  
  
"I was wasted! God, Carter, I know you don't like the guy, but he'd never -" she stopped, realising that she was shouting. "He'd never do that. Why would you even think that?" "Because he doesn't like me any more than I like him."  
  
"So this is about you again? Thank you." Carter recognised that her voice was now dangerously low, and he was a little ashamed of what he'd said.  
  
"I worry Abby."  
  
"I don't know where you're going with this. He didn't make anything of it did he?"  
  
"He doesn't know." Thank God.  
  
"Then ."  
  
"You should stay away from him."  
  
"There you are with should again! He's my friend."  
  
"He's your ex boyfriend! He's like a bad habit. Abby, he's part of the problem."  
  
"No, he's not."  
  
"He is! Have you forgotten? He was never there for you; how many times did you tell me he didn't understand you?"  
  
"I didn't understand him either."  
  
"So why should he be involved; what has he to do with any of this now?"  
  
"Nothing! You can't blame him for any of this! I didn't drink when I was with him." Carter looked at her sharply. Kovac's words. She forged on. "He didn't make me drink. I made me drink."  
  
"You were living with him!"  
  
"He didn't know!"  
  
"No, great relationship you two had there." Abby wanted him to stop because if he continued she'd be forced to defend Luka again.  
  
"Can we stop this?" Carter reached for her but she turned away, pretending not to notice.  
  
"I've thought about this, I really have, and I need to do this on my own now."  
  
"Why?" Her heart sank at the desperation in his voice.  
  
"Because if I get straight while I'm with someone I'll never know that I did it myself! And if I don't make it I'll - "  
  
"Blame me."  
  
"Not exactly."  
  
"You're blaming me now." She didn't answer.  
  
"So that's it?" She nodded, not meeting his eye. "Should I - should I wait?" A shake of her head. "No?" he said incredulously.  
  
"I don't know what I'm going to feel."  
  
"But apparently you know now."  
  
"I know what I have to do."  
  
"Do share."  
  
"Rehab. Or therapy. Maybe both."  
  
"Rehab?"  
  
"Maybe. I have to figure it out. It'll mean time away, three months."  
  
"I know." he said, sourly. Been there, done that, got the souvenir baseball cap. "Jesus Christ, no good deed goes unpunished."  
  
"Good deed?"  
  
"I've only been trying to - "  
  
"You're not my sponsor, and I'm not a charitable cause! See, this is too much about you for it to work for me."  
  
"So, what, I just go now and pretend we never happened? Adopt a kitten?" "We can't do that."  
  
Carter laughed. "No Ma'am, we can't."  
  
"I don't know what else to tell you. "  
  
"Kovac know about this?"  
  
Abby wanted to scream at him that the man had a Christian name "About what?"  
  
"Rehab. You and me."  
  
"No."  
  
"But he will though."  
  
"He'll have to."  
  
"Sure. Well," he said, making for the door, "that's going to be fun."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Watching the bastard trying not to gloat."  
  
"He won't. He doesn't. " He loves me, she wanted to add. "When did he ever give you a hard time about me?" Carter shook his head laughing.  
  
"Boy, you've really bought into it, haven't you? Saint Luka."  
  
"He didn't need to give you a hard time because you did that all by yourself! You need to let if go, John, it'll kill you."  
  
"You would know."  
  
"Of course I would. You need to do the same as me, and you need to do it for yourself and you need to do it soon."  
  
"Whatever" was his final word as he closed the door behind him.  
  
Abby sat in the half light of the summer's evening, terrified of what she'd just done, trying to understand what she felt. She was ashamed to admit that right then what she felt was overwhelming relief. She remembered the crushing, gnawing anguish of defeat which had followed her break up with Luka, and realised that she had fallen into the habit of comparison.  
  
She reached for the 'phone ready now to call her sponsor to whom she had not turned in so long - not since she'd been with Carter. She was half way through dialling when she stopped herself, realising that it was Luka's number that she had started to dial. 


	8. Chapter 8

Part VIII  
  
Bastard. The bastard. Saint Luka. The bastard had said something to her and hey, John Carter was on his own again. Bastard. He wanted to hit something, someone, wondered what his chances would be against Kovac, thought better of it. He'd seen what the man was capable of. For an unhinged moment he toyed with the idea of goading him into lashing out. Do it at the hospital and he'd be out, his career finished, on a plane back to Zagreb and the bomb cratered wasteland he took Croatia to be. He knew it wouldn't work; he'd tried it once before but Kovac had refused to take the bait.  
  
How had this happened? Three days ago everything had been fine, and now this. He was wrong of course and he knew it. Things hadn't been fine. They'd been finely balanced between success and failure, he and Abby, and the balance had tilted.  
  
"John?" Carter sighed.  
  
"Not now , Gamma."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"It's nothing. I'm a little tired. Don't worry." His grandmother stood in the doorway to his room, eyebrows raised sceptically. She saw through him as she always had, and came to him, sitting beside him, taking his hand.  
  
"You always say it's nothing. I don't believe you. Is it Abby?" Carter nodded mutely.  
  
"You quarrelled?"  
  
"Not exactly." He laughed. "We broke up."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Are you?"  
  
"For your sorrow."  
  
"You didn't like her."  
  
"I didn't know her. I thought - "  
  
"What?"  
  
"I thought that you weren't right for each other."  
  
"Well, apparently she agrees with you."  
  
"John, you must have seen how needy she is; you need someone strong, grounded. "  
  
Yeah, he thought, he needed a Kovac.  
  
"She was strong. She is strong. She's been through so much and she's dealt with it alone."  
  
"And I commend her for it. She's been a good friend to you , John. But there's a world of difference between a friend and a partner for the rest of your life. I don't think it wise to confuse the two."  
  
"Gampa was your best friend."  
  
"Yes, he was. But he was my lover, too, always. And there's no accounting for that. You need both, John. Nothing will last unless you have both. She doesn't feel that for you." A horrible thought occurred to her. "Is there - someone else?" Carter didn't know how to answer that.  
  
"No."  
  
"You don't seem certain if it." Carter was silent for a moment. He hadn't seriously thought that she'd go back to Kovac, not that.  
  
"The guy she dated before. We argued and she went to him." He didn't tell her that she'd got loaded first. They hadn't told his grandmother about her drinking. They'd not been ready for that.  
  
"And?"  
  
"She still thinks about him I think."  
  
"And him?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"It takes two, John. What did he do when she went to him?"  
  
"He called me."  
  
"Well, that's good, isn't it? He sounds like an honourable man." Yeah; Saint Luka.  
  
"She went to him before. Before we were together. After her neighbour assaulted her - "  
  
He saw the look on his grandmother's face and realised that this was something else she hadn't known. "It's a long story. Anyhow, she lived with him for a couple of months then."  
  
"Lived with him?"  
  
"No, not like that." I don't think, he added to himself. "Stayed at his place."  
  
"He appears to care about her at least."  
  
"I guess." Another silence which she didn't seek to break. "It's just - I don't like him."  
  
"Well, that's your prerogative. What don't you like?"  
  
"I don't know. He has a history."  
  
"A history of what?"  
  
"You name it. He's European, Croatian. He lost his wife and kids in the war there he says."  
  
"Says? Do you doubt it?"  
  
"No. No I guess not. It's just that I can't get past it. He's a good doctor, you know? Doesn't seem to ask much of people at the hospital. But when I look at him all I see is his suffering, like a badge. And then - "  
  
"And then Abby."  
  
"No. No, he killed a man." Carter sensed her shock, resented the interest behind it. "They were out. On a date - their first I think. They were attacked and he killed the guy. Beat his brains out. But she stayed with him! I guess she felt sorry for him. I just felt afraid of him."  
  
"Why? Because of the violence?"  
  
"No. Because I - I never felt that much in my whole life. Not that much love, not that much pain, not that much rage. He makes me feel as though I never felt anything."  
  
"But you know that isn't true."  
  
"No I don't. I shut down."  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"After Bobby died. It's what Mom and Dad did and I did it too. I kept it shut down. And when I was stabbed it wasn't just that pain I felt, it was all of it, everything I'd kept stored away, spilling out. But I did feel. And Kovac seemed to rob me of that. Whatever I went through, whenever I looked at him it didn't compare to what he'd got."  
  
"What he'd got?"  
  
"Been through" he corrected himself.  
  
"You make it sound like a contest" she said quietly.  
  
"Yeah. Every time I hurt I'd look at him and feel as though I didn't have the right. I just wanted him out of my sight. I hated him, Gamma. It's wrong of me but I did. I do."  
  
"We often hate those to whom we are unjust."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You resent his pain. It's almost as if you covet it." Carter shook his head.  
  
"No."  
  
"It sounds to me like the sort of prize he - anyone - would rather not have won. What do you suppose he sees when he looks at you?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Rich man, drug addict, stabbing victim?"  
  
"I don't know. Doctor I think. I don't really care."  
  
"But you do. You do care." Carter just shook his head again. "John, you don't want to be defined by what happened to you. I understand that, I applaud that. But it's only you doing it. Don't you want your life back?"  
  
"I thought I had it!"  
  
"In Abby? Oh, John it doesn't work like that. Love doesn't do that and it doesn't ask it. You can be prepared to die for each other but you can't live for each other. You do that, look what happens. She's gone and where's your life?" Carter was crying now, like the little boy he always was to her. "Things happened to you that shouldn't. But you're more than the boy who lived when his brother died; more than a victim of violence, more than a drug addict. They're all part of you, but you're more than that. You have to learn to believe it."  
  
She was right, Carter knew. He thought of Chase who had rushed headlong into disaster and who had sat, unimpressed at his admission of his own addiction. But it was the only real confession he'd ever made about it. The rehab, the therapy, the meetings, all had been a means to an end. The wrong end. He'd done it to get back to work, to regain the status which he felt validated him. He hadn't done it to get his life back. And he knew he had to. Step 9. Making amends. He acknowledged the truth of his grandmother's words. "We often hate those to whom we are unjust." And knew too that at some point there would have to be a reckoning with Kovac, But not yet. No, not yet. 


	9. Chapter 9

When Danijella was worried - if money was short, if Luka was pulling double shifts, if the children were tetchy - she cleaned. Jasna and Marko would be dispatched to a neighbour and then cupboards would be emptied, linen laundered, wardrobes and drawers rearranged, windows polished. Luka would come home to an apartment smelling fresh from the open windows, and sparkling from her attentions. At first he'd be hesitant to sit down, to make coffee, unfold his newspaper until she'd catch his eye and she'd shrug as if to say "Humour me", and lead him to clean sheets. He could smile at the memory now, remembering how later she'd pretend to be vexed at their clothes dropped on the floor, the crumpled bedding. When he came back from the neighbours with Jasna sleeping in his arms, and later with a child on either hip, they'd put them to bed, and he'd reason with her that their bed had already been messed up, so why not .  
  
Well, Danijella had had a wise head on her shoulders and if it had worked for her he was willing to give it a go himself. He'd forgotten that putting down roots led to the acquisition of possessions, that permanence required maintenance. So. Cupboards were emptied, linen laundered, wardrobe and drawers rearranged, windows and floors polished. He cleared out the fridge, cleaned the oven and left the windows open to catch what little breeze there was. Every surface was cleared, cleaned, polished. Eight hours later, his furniture concentrated in the middle of the room, he was preparing to reinstate his belongings when there was a knock on his door.  
  
Abby. This was becoming a habit. She took in the disarray of the apartment and raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question.  
  
"Spring cleaning." he said  
  
"It's August."  
  
Luka shrugged. "I didn't do in the spring." Humour me. He offered her coffee and, when she grimaced, made tea instead, and they stood in uneasy silence. Why was she here? She didn't seem about to volunteer the information. Luka wondered if he'd spend the rest of his life breaking awkward silences.  
  
"Abby - "  
  
At the same moment she decided to do the same.  
  
"Luka - "  
  
"Well, at least we know our names. You go."  
  
"Carter talked to you."  
  
"Yes." Oh dear.  
  
"I - he -"  
  
"It's Ok. I understand. This is hard for him."  
  
"Too hard. We broke up."  
  
"What? Why?"  
  
"Because this means too much to him. I can't carry that weight, not just now." And because I can't stop thinking about you.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
She smiled at him. "Yeah. I think you are."  
  
"Is he OK?"  
  
"I don't know." She paused. "I'm considering rehab."  
  
"You did it before."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"It helped then?"  
  
"Yes. I think I just forgot."  
  
"Forgot what?"  
  
"That I'm a drunk. That I can't drink, not ever. It just kinda slipped my mind there for a moment."  
  
"So for you this will be like . a refresher course?"  
  
She laughed then. "Something like that." No. It was back to square one.  
  
"Well, I hope -"  
  
"I know."  
  
"When?"  
  
"I don't know. I have to find myself a place."  
  
"Anything I can do?"  
  
"Not this time. I almost called you last night."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"But I decided I needed to do this in person." "Do what?"  
  
"I need to say that I'm sorry. Not for the other night. For everything."  
  
"There's no need."  
  
"Yes. There is. I deceived you."  
  
"No -"  
  
"Yes, I did. I didn't know how to do anything else."  
  
"I don't feel deceived." That wasn't entirely true. He didn't feel that she'd set out to do it.  
  
"And I guess we both have things to be sorry for, yes?"  
  
"You've been a good friend to me Luka."  
  
"Not so much. Not as good as I could have been."  
  
"Sure you have." There would be more to say later; this was a start, she thought. "So, you need some help?"  
  
"With what?"  
  
She nodded at the furniture.  
  
"Oh, no, no, it's OK."  
  
"Come on, just this once, let me help." She winked at him. "You owe me."  
  
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  
  
The hall was pretty much full. An overhead fan made a desultory and wholly ineffective attempt to alleviate the stifling heat of the place. Carter ran his palm over his face and listened intently to the speaker at the front of the hall. A story not dissimilar to his own. Pain. It was always pain that did it, brought them here, and not the sort that could be dulled by a shot of morphine, although for many that had seemed to be an almost magical solution. At first. Shattered homes, fatherless children left in their wake, mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers, sons, all lost to themselves. "I know now that I have an illness and more than that I know where it came from. And like any sick person I have to take my medicine. My medicine is being here, looking at how I got here. I used to need people to care. But they could never care enough to fill me up because there was a slow leak that meant it would always fall short." The man laughed a little. "I'm a plumber. I should know. My care for myself. I've learned that I have to care for myself, because in the end that's all we can be sure of, all we've got - ourselves." Carter wasn't sure that he agreed with that. He had his grandmother, his work. In a sudden moment of clarity he saw it. He had them; they no longer had him, not really, because he too had lost himself. He'd suffered and had been ashamed. I didn't do to suffer in his family, in their world. No sir. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." Did it? Could it still? Maybe it could. The prospect of embracing his suffering, of wedding himself to it for better, for worse, was an appalling one. But it was part of him. If he denied it he might as well have been cutting off a limb. Abby had seen it festering and had turned from it in terror, her own pain calling, siren-like to her.  
  
He thought of the patients he had seen in the ER, paying the price for their bad diet, smoking, lack of exercise in the pain of a heart attack. He'd found it easy enough to tell them to look at themselves, how they'd brought themselves to that place. Told them that they had to understand their condition, live with it, address it, do what was necessary to prevent further damage. If they didn't pay attention to their pain it would kill them in the end. Well, he was there now. He'd worked his way back into his job, thinking that John Carter MD was who he was, got his Attending position finally, functioned just fine, thank you. But the disease was still there, it's underlying cause,(Your diagnosis, Carter? "Emotional malnutrition exacerbated by familial hypothermia and a bad guilt infection") unresolved.  
  
He couldn't undo any of it of course. The stabbing, Bobby, his parents. He paused there thinking of his mother. She'd said she loved him, but he knew that she remained as paralysed by her guilt and grief as she'd ever been, and saw himself in 20 years time, impotently protesting his love to someone else that it could no longer touch. She'd done the best she could. A poor best, true, but he had to admit that he hadn't done his, not yet. What had happened had happened and there was no undoing it. The question before him was "What now?"  
  
He thought of his grandmother, of the illness which he had been instrumental in diagnosing, knew that it would kill her sooner or later. Did he want to absent himself, damage and all, from her remaining years? Did he want to be absent from the rest of his life? And Mark Greene. Carter didn't know how long he might have, how long he could put off fixing this. And Abby. He was surprised to find that he didn't miss her as much as he'd expected. She was gone now, in rehab, and she'd been optimistic, empowered by her decision. It was an optimism he tried to feel about his own return to the programme, determined this time to mean it. The time would come - and soon - when he would have to speak to Kovac. The man was on his list. He found himself almost looking forward to that moment and the release it would afford him. He felt his shame melting away by degrees and when he stood up his voice was firm and clear. "Hi, I'm John and I'm a drug addict." 


	10. Chapter 10

Part X  
  
"Well," he thought, "this should be interesting." In much the same way that a broken leg is interesting. Luka glanced at the clock for the fifth time in as many minutes. He felt reassured that this meeting was to take place on his own turf. He'd been first surprised and then wary when Carter had asked if he could call on him.  
  
"I need to speak to you."  
  
"About?"  
  
"Can we leave it 'til I see you?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
He knew what it was about of course, wished he could skip it, bestow absolution without having to hear the confession. It seemed he had to be receptive to all comers these days, people falling over themselves to make amends to him. He didn't want it, he thought, irritably, and then felt a little ashamed. "If he can do this so can you," he told himself.  
  
Carter nursed the coffee which Luka had made and didn't know where to look, let alone start.  
  
"You drank it."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You drank the coffee; most people can't stomach it." Kovac was smiling at him.  
  
"It was --- interesting."  
  
"You're very kind." Sarcasm? Carter decided not.  
  
"The apartment's looking good. The paintings by your dad?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You're right. He's good."  
  
"What's on your mind, Carter?" It wasn't a question; it was a prompt.  
  
"I don't really know where to start, how to say what I have to say."  
  
"Simply would be best." And quickest.  
  
"I've . I've not always been - " he faltered; tried again. "I've behaved badly towards you Ko - Luka. And I've known I was doing it and I've known why. Do you?"  
  
"I don't need to know why."  
  
"I need you to know."  
  
Luka nodded. "OK." And waited. Minutes passed.  
  
"I've never liked you. Not when I first met you and not since."  
  
"I see."  
  
"No, you don't, because it really had - has - nothing to do with you. It's about me."  
  
"Go on."  
  
"You're what I'm not. Have everything I don't."  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"No. Why would you? Family, love, resilience. All the things a man is supposed to have, and I have none of them."  
  
"That's not - "  
  
"Please; don't interrupt me. Please." And again Luka waited. "I don't know how else to explain it. All my life I've been trying to . matter. When I qualified I thought that would be it, that would do it, but it wasn't. Putting MD after your name doesn't change anything, does it?" he looked at Luka, clearly expecting an answer.  
  
"I don't think so, no."  
  
Carter nodded. "But the thing is, I always had my reasons for feeling bad, there like old pals to turn to. Bobby, my parents, Lucy, Sobricki - "  
  
"Bobby?"  
  
Carter shook his head. "Doesn't matter about the details. They all did double duty; if I failed they were the reason; if I succeeded I could tell myself I'd overcome them. I was very attached to them."  
  
"Carter - "  
  
No. It --- it's what I feel. And then, bingo, addiction. That felt like the real me, actually. I don't think I was ever more myself than when I was using, lying, cheating. Payback." He'd been through all this in his meetings, but the effort of telling Luka was exhausting. "Can I get a glass of water?"  
  
"Sure. I'll get it." But Carter stood and followed him. Luka handed him the glass.  
  
"Neat kitchen. Can you cook?"  
  
"A little."  
  
"Of course you can. I can't."  
  
"You've never needed to I guess."  
  
"You'd guess right."  
  
"You want to sit?"  
  
"No. Do you mind?"  
  
"No, no."  
  
"Anything you don't do?"  
  
"Mental arithmetic, type, play the piano - or soft ball." Carter found a smile from somewhere. "Talk. I don't do that well either." Luka added softly. Carter nodded.  
  
"You heard from Abby?" he asked suddenly.  
  
"No. You?"  
  
"No. I don't really expect to. Do you . do you think she'll be all right?" Luka considered the question for a moment.  
  
"Yes. I do. She --- it seems like she woke up. Like she found something."  
  
"Herself."  
  
"And you?"  
  
"Me too." He looked Luka in the face for the first time in some minutes. "Still looking. I feel bad about her too. Maybe I should go and talk to the people I don't feel bad about. It would be quicker "  
  
"Why do you feel bad?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"About Abby. You seemed happy enough together."  
  
"We were fooling ourselves. I needed her to change. It's not a good way to go into something."  
  
"Maybe when she gets back --- "  
  
"No. I can't do that, even if she could. It's wrong. The blind leading the blind. Actually the blind pushing the blind in my case. . This is hard for me. Abby I mean. I was angry - when you two were together. I'd started to think she'd be there for me, and then you .I blamed you because I didn't want to blame her. And I just carried on blaming. I think maybe I used her in a way."  
  
"How?"  
  
"To get at you. To feel better about myself."  
  
"I understand."  
  
"And her drinking - "  
  
"Carter - "  
  
"I know, I know she never told you. I shouldn't have done what I did, but I was scared. I mean she was sober for six years, you know?" Luka nodded. "I couldn't have handled it any worse, could I?" Carter continued. "Why did she come to you?" he asked suddenly.  
  
"What?"  
  
"After she was beaten up?"  
  
"I don't know, " said Luka, cautiously. "Because I offered; because it was safe, no complications."  
  
"You believe that?"  
  
"Believe what?"  
  
"No complications."  
  
"She believed it. That's what mattered."  
  
"And she could drink."  
  
"I don't know. You'd have to ask her about that."  
  
"I guess."  
  
"You'll be OK, Carter. You're a good man."  
  
Carter felt tears threaten. He hadn't expected kindness from Luka and there it was, and it made him want to cry.  
  
"I need to say I'm sorry."  
  
"You said it."  
  
"I mean it."  
  
"I know. Leave it alone now. " Carter nodded. They were silent for a moment before Luka asked "Have you eaten?"  
  
"No." Luka took his glass from him. "Give me a hand then."  
  
They'd prepared dinner together, Carter following instructions, and had eaten as they talked of inconsequential, harmless things, safe things. It had felt surreal to Luka and he suspected it felt at least that to Carter. As he left Carter held out his hand; Luka took it and on an impulse pulled him into an embrace, leaving Carter disconcerted. As he went out of the door he turned suddenly and said  
  
"I still don't like you."  
  
"OK." Said Luka. 


	11. Chapter 11

Part XI  
  
She'd found it difficult to sleep at first. And to eat. If she'd thought that this was going to be easier than the first time she knew her mistake now. She'd told Carter, oh, a hundred years ago, that she was a different person. "That sure came back and bit me in the ass," she thought, because it was this new person who now had to submit to the rigours of rehabilitation, and this new person hadn't done it before. No matter. She would do it. Unpack herself, finally look herself in the face. What she saw as she did this was often uncomfortable, painful, sometimes terrifying.  
  
As time went on she faced some awful truths. Saw how she had poisoned her own life and saw too how the poison had seeped into those around her. Richard, Luka, even Carter. She recognised the blueprint for failure on which she had modelled herself but also came to the astonishing realisation that she had been loved. Richard had loved her, and she had tested his love to destruction until he became the man she though she deserved, a man only now finding himself again. Luka had loved her but she had used every weapon in her armoury to repel him until he could fight no longer. And Carter too had loved her in his way, but had needed her to be someone else. She should be grateful to him for making her realise that she could only go through this cycle so many times. When she had drunk in order to get out of it she'd realised that she did finally care enough about herself to do something.  
  
And who exactly was she? She had thought she'd known but saw now that she'd been wrong. But she'd made up her mind that by the time this 90 days were up she'd be able to look herself in the face without turning in disgust from what she saw. And, if she wasn't able to love it she'd be willing to start trying.  
  
As time went on the pain of living without a drink receded; the pain of self examination became more bearable and she was slowly able to discern the outline of the woman she was to be. Gradually the detail of the image came into focus and she greeted this woman without fear and without loathing and this was wholly new to her.  
  
On the day that her therapist told her that if she was ready to go he would be willing to let her she had made her way to the telephone, but realised she had no-one to call. Carter? No, not Carter. Luka? Luka. Abby knew that she wanted nothing more than to have him waiting at the station when she returned, to go to him and to say with a smile "Still love me?", but she was suddenly afraid of what he might say and more afraid of her own response. She would do this alone. She wrote a note to Carter, another to Luka telling them she'd be back Friday and that she'd be in touch when she was ready. And then she went to pack.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The day dawned brilliantly grey and overcast, and the journey by train seemed endless, but oddly soothing, and it was a shock to emerge into the noise and crowds of the city. She allowed herself to smoke a longed for cigarette before taking a cab home.  
  
Abby stood in the centre of her apartment and said aloud "OK, this is where the hard work begins." She taped the number of her sponsor at the side of the 'phone and felt better for doing that. It seemed awfully quiet and she was startled when she heard the knock at her door. It was her neighbour, partly obscured by a large bag of groceries.  
  
"You're back."  
  
"Yes. Just now.  
  
"Have a good trip?"  
  
"Sure. Very - restful." A pause. Abby looked at the groceries with raised eyes.  
  
"Oh, your friend brought these by, asked me to make sure you got them."  
  
"My friend?"  
  
"Yeah, the real tall one, foreign accent - Russian or something. "  
  
"Luka"  
  
"That's it - Luka. Haven't seen him here in a while. Nice man."  
  
"Yes, he is. Can I take those?"  
  
"Sure, sure." She handed over the groceries but continued to hover.  
  
"Well, I have to unpack. Thanks for these." And Abby shut the door firmly.  
  
Abby unpacked the fresh groceries with a smile. No note. Typical. She should call him to say thank you. Was he working today? There was no answer at his apartment. The November afternoon was turning into evening as she turned the pages of the calendar on her wall. August. September. October. November. Today. November 19th. Today. Oh, Luka.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ He wasn't at the hospital on Monday when she presented herself for a meeting with Kerry to discuss her return to work. The truth was she needed to get back; her finances were in a parlous state and if she was honest she didn't relish the prospect of very many more days alone with nothing to but think.  
  
"Two weeks." said Kerry. "I can see that you're anxious to get back but I really think that it would be beneficial for you to spend some time at home, adjust to things." Abby opened her mouth to speak but Kerry said "I have taken it under advisement."  
  
"Sure."  
  
"And you know, if you need time out to talk -"  
  
"Thanks, Kerry, I'll be fine."  
  
"You're sure?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"OK"  
  
"I - I thought I'd fill Haleh and Lydia in while I'm here."  
  
"Oh, I can do that if you'd prefer."  
  
"No, it's OK. I'm a big girl." She smiled and headed for the admit desk.  
  
  
  
He was taking a long time to answer his door. Maybe he was out. She was about to turn away when the door opened. She'd expected him to look drawn and tired and was surprised to see that he did not. He just looked absurdly pleased to see her. He'd evidently just put on his coat ready to go out. Abby found herself engulfed in a huge hug of welcome, and grinned until her face hurt.  
  
"Welcome back!" She'd forgotten how warm his voice was.  
  
"Yeah. Good to be home. You're going out."  
  
"Yes. I have to see someone. Come with me?"  
  
"Who is it?"  
  
"Wait and see."  
  
  
  
Abby sat alongside him in the car, suddenly at a loss for words, awkward and neither of them knowing how they should talk to each other.  
  
"Thanks for the groceries."  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
"It was a kind thought. What do I owe you?"  
  
"Owe me?"  
  
"For the groceries."  
  
"Oh, they cost a fortune; I'll have my accountant send you a bill."  
  
"Suit yourself. So, who are we meeting?"  
  
"My girlfriend." Abby let this sink in for a moment.  
  
"Your girlfriend? What's her name?"  
  
"Rosa. I've been doing some volunteering at the Croatian Community Centre, and I met her there."  
  
"I didn't know there was a Croatian Community Centre."  
  
"Several."  
  
Keep talking Abby, keep breathing. "So - what do you do?"  
  
"Help with the old people mostly. A lot of them came over after the war looking for relatives, but they end up alone."  
  
"And Rosa?"  
  
"Her family come from a village not far from my grandparents' farm. Small world, eh?" he grinned.  
  
"Yeah." Real small.  
  
  
  
Luka pulled up outside an apartment building Abby was glad she didn't live in. The Viper immediately attracted some attention, but a very tall and massively built young man emerged from the building and took up position at the side of the car. Luka handed him a $5 bill and led Abby inside.  
  
"What's that all about?"  
  
"Protection."  
  
"What?"  
  
"His grandmother lives here and I happened to be here when she had a heart attack. Now I get discount."  
  
Astonishingly the lift worked and they got out at the third floor. Abby was a little shocked when he unlocked the door himself  
  
"You have a key?" Already, she wanted to add.  
  
"Well, it makes things easier, you know?" She knew. Abby followed him inside and watched as Luka spread his arms wide and took the woman into his embrace. She leaned back and gazed adoringly up at him, laying one hand against his face, her smile radiant. Abby didn't understand a word they were saying, but smiled when she realised that an introduction as being effected. The tiny woman smiled back and nodded and Abby couldn't take her eyes off her.  
  
She was at least 70 years old. She spoke again to Luka and went into what appeared to be a bedroom. Abby turned to Luka who was looking back at her with the merest trace of a smile in his eyes.  
  
"Fooled you" he said quietly.  
  
"No you didn't"  
  
"Yes, I did."  
  
"Nah, I knew you weren't dating."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"I got all caught up with the gossip this morning with Haleh and Lydia."  
  
"What makes you think they'd know?"  
  
"You're such an innocent, Kovac. They'd know. They know if someone changes their brand of toothpaste."  
  
Rosa returned in her coat and took Abby's arm.  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
"Shopping. I try to take her once a week. So I know she'll eat properly." He repeated this last phrase in Croation and Rosa waved a hand dismissively at him. He'd pulled a wheelchair from the corner but Rosa all but spat at it and walked until they reached the end of the street when she conceded defeat, allowing Luka to push. "She has angina, asthma, arthritis, a bad knee." Rosa spoke, evidently asking what he was saying, and he translated, and then laughed at her response. "She says that apart from that she has the health of a 20 year old, and she also wants to know when I'm going to get married."  
  
It took three hours to get Rosa's shopping bought, unpacked; for gritty coffee to be drunk and pastries eaten which were so sweet that Abby could hear her teeth rotting. Before they left Luka checked her pills, looked over some bills and paperwork and fixed new light bulbs in her bedroom and kitchen. Abby accepted another pastry, wrapped in kitchen paper and submitted to a hug, the strength of which belied Rosa's apparent frailty. The old woman took Luka's face between her hands and kissed him, saying something which clearly made her emotional before releasing him with a smile.  
  
"So," Luka said, as he unlocked the car and gave Protection the $5 dollar balance, "You like her?"  
  
"She's very sweet."  
  
"Yeah, but I have to be careful."  
  
"Why? She married?"  
  
"Worse."  
  
"What could be worse?"  
  
"She has a granddaughter."  
  
"You don't think she's pretty?"  
  
"She's 76 years old, Abby."  
  
"I meant - oh, funny today, huh?"  
  
"I haven't met her. She lives in Idaho or somewhere, I don't know. Actually all my old ladies have granddaughters. It's a jungle out there sometimes. But now it will be all round everyone that I went to visit Rosa with a woman."  
  
"Glad to be of use."  
  
"Oh, I knew I could depend on you." She knew he wasn't talking about today.  
  
"Yeah, well, don't make a habit of it."  
  
They were silent for a while. "And how are you, Abby?"  
  
"I'm good, I think. It's a little weird to be back. Kerry thinks I should spend a couple of weeks acclimatizing to the real world before I come back to work. I think she's probably right. I don't feel quite real at the moment." Deep breath. "I tried to call you." He didn't answer. "I forgot the date, Luka. I'm sorry."  
  
"No, it's OK. I helped out at the centre. Tried to avoid getting dragged along to church, but they got me in the end." His smile was less assured now. "This is a bad time for a lot of them. We got a little drunk together. Us and the priest." He looked at her anxiously then.  
  
"What about Rosa's family?"  
  
"Her son and two grandsons died at Vukovar. Sometimes she calls me by their names."  
  
"She gets confused?"  
  
"No. She's just pretending."  
  
  
  
"Here's you."  
  
"Come up and have some dinner?"  
  
"I'm on at seven." Not to mention having just consumed my daily calorie allowance, he thought.  
  
"Won't take me long. Come on I can tell you tales from rehabilitation."  
  
"You sure? Don't think you have to talk to me about this if it's too hard." Luka's voice had sunk to almost a whisper. Do you remember what you said to me? Abby thought.  
  
"Yes, I could use some company. Of course I don't have a personal car bodyguard but it should be safe enough." Please.  
  
Luka shrugged. "I'll risk it." 


	12. Chapter 12

"Good locks" Luka commented as she let them into her apartment  
  
"Yeah, well, I know this guy."  
  
"Reliable?"  
  
Abby was unprepared for how awkward she felt with him in the apartment; he seemed so big in her space, and, self-conscious, she dropped food, utensils, almost scalded herself running hot water. Getting the food from her plate to her mouth became a problem which assumed insurmountable proportions. She noticed that Luka had no such difficulties. She was aware that he was watching her quietly from the other side of the table. The hell with it she thought, and put down her knife and fork, her meal only half finished.  
  
"What is it?" he asked quietly.  
  
"I'm not very hungry." This was by now true. Adrenalin was making her faintly nauseous.  
  
"I just don't think I'm used to . being here." She finished, lamely.  
  
"Do you want me to go?"  
  
"What? No, no of course not." This was only half true. She rather desperately wanted him to leave. And to stay.  
  
"I don't want to crowd you, make you uncomfortable."  
  
"You don't." This was an out and out lie.  
  
"Perhaps you shouldn't try to do too much. I mean, you know what you can do of course, but ."  
  
"I know." She fell silent again. Do you remember what you said to me?  
  
"I have to get going anyway." His voice was very quiet. Abby nodded.  
  
"I - thanks for this afternoon. Rosa was a treat."  
  
"Isn't she just?" Luka was smiling now, and Abby felt a little more comfortable. "You should see her when she lets her hair down with the others. It's terrifying."  
  
"I'd like that."  
  
"You would?" He seemed surprised. "Well, perhaps later . there's a lot of heavy duty drinking involved -"  
  
"I see."  
  
" - but it's the dancing I'd worry about. That kind of stress you don't need just now, I think. you might like to give it a while."  
  
"Ballroom dancing?"  
  
"God, no. Folk dancing. Clapping, stamping, shouting. Very strenuous, very noisy."  
  
"Rosa does that?"  
  
"No, she sits on the sidelines and eggs the younger ones on. And makes matches."  
  
"Do you dance?" Her curiosity was piqued.  
  
"Not if I can help it, " he laughed, "but sometimes I have to escape the generality of granddaughters by dancing with one or other of them. I've had nightmares about it." It occurred to Abby then that a subtle change had taken place in Luka. She had witnessed some of his dreams; he would not then have joked about nightmares as he did now. She wanted very much to ask him to tell her fully what had happened to Danijella and the children, and then felt curiously ashamed of her desire.  
  
"I'm going to be late, I should go."  
  
"Sure."  
  
"Thank you for dinner - it was good of you when you have so much to - deal with."  
  
"Yeah, well, I'm lulling you into a false sense of security until I can get you back for the lamb gruel."  
  
"You know how to bear a grudge, don't you?."  
  
"No, but my stomach does. Oh, here, take this." She put the pastry Rosa had given her into his pocket. You might need it around midnight."  
  
Luka nodded and went on his way. A few steps along the hall he turned back and, stooping swiftly, one hand laid on her shoulder, kissed her lightly on the cheek. "Welcome back."  
  
Once outside in the damp November air Luka leaned against the front door of the building and took a couple of deep breaths. He had felt the tension in her. She'd been fine when they were with Rosa, but it seemed to him that the normal, everyday transactions with people told on her quickly, and he didn't want her to overreach herself, scolded himself for accepting her invitation to dinner. She had seemed genuinely to want his company though and the evening had ended well enough. Perhaps he could do this, be her friend. It was after all what she needed. The afternoon had seemed almost surreal. He hadn't expected her and knew that he couldn't let Rosa down; nor could he turn Abby away. Three months. Three months. He was a little ashamed to admit that he'd forgotten what her voice sounded like. She seemed well. Jesus, what did he know about it? He hoped she'd be able to talk to him; didn't feel able to offer. Truth be told he was scared to death. He wondered if she remembered what he'd said to her. He didn't think so; hoped not. IDIOT, he cursed himself.  
  
Abby leaned against the door when he'd gone. He must think she was a fool. She felt she'd done so well when they were with Rosa, but just talking to him, being with him had been torture. She shouldn't have invited him in. She hoped she'd be able to talk to him, but didn't like to ask. Did he remember? She thought probably not. In a way she hoped not. IDIOT, she cursed herself. And she still had Carter to face yet. One step at a time, Abby, one step at a time.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "Carter."  
  
"Hi. You're early."  
  
"A few minutes. What do we have on the board?" As he listened to Carter's handover he was taken by a growing sense of unease. Should he tell him he'd seen Abby?  
  
"You seen Abby?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Has she called or anything?" Damn.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Carter waited.  
  
"She called by. I - I took some provisions round and left them with a neighbour. She seemed to think I needed paying immediately." And then we spent the afternoon together and then she cooked me dinner.  
  
"How did she seem?"  
  
"She was OK. I think she knows what she's doing."  
  
"Did she . did she mention me?"  
  
"Not directly." Damn again.  
  
"You mean not at all."  
  
"She'll call you when she'd ready, Carter."  
  
  
  
Luka was certain that when Carter had told him "I still don't like you" he had been speaking the truth. Still, he had settled into a more congenial relationship with Luka, had conceded a number of points of procedure to him, which had thrown Luka into a spin at first, and seemed generally ready to work with and learn from him. What Luka didn't know and couldn't guess, was that Carter had felt as though a monumental weight had been lifted from his shoulders after he had spoken to Luka. Kovac's unlooked for kindness had raised his spirits for days and he had resolved, in much the same way that children resolve to keep their bedrooms tidy, to like his colleague. It came and went and he was surprised to find himself liking Luka without trying for seconds at a time.  
  
He was dreading seeing Abby. There was a great deal they had to say to each other. They hadn't spoken properly before she'd left for rehab, and the whole issue of their relationship hung in the air. He needed to see her but knew that he had to wait for her to come to him.  
  
"It - it'll be fine, you know." Kovac was speaking to him.  
  
"The MI or the wrist fracture?" Kovac didn't laugh. "I know. I feel like I'm waiting to see the dentist is all."  
  
"Just remember to be kind to each other."  
  
"I don't need - " He bit back the words. "Sure. I'm gone." 


	13. Chapter 13

He had been waiting for her call with equal measures of dread and anticipation, but when it came dread got the better of him and he found himself barely able to speak. They'd exchanged few words; brief, to the point, and he'd known there and then how things were to be. Still, he rang the doorbell at the arranged time and waited, and saw, when she opened the door, that her smile on seeing him was real. They hugged, awkwardly, but what he didn't know, couldn't have guessed, was that Abby instantly called to mind Luka's heartfelt embrace of a week earlier.  
  
"So. Three months."  
  
"Three months, 1 week and 2 days."  
  
"And counting."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"And how is it?"  
  
"Hard. It's hard, but . it's good, you know?" Carter nodded.  
  
"Sit. I cooked."  
  
"I'm honoured."  
  
"You'll never know ." Silence. "How have you been, Carter?"  
  
"I've been better. And worse. I'm OK." Abby made no reply. "I'm in therapy" Carter continued brightly.  
  
"Me too. How is it?"  
  
"Hard. It's hard but . it's good, you know?" She laughed at that.  
  
"We can compare stories." They both knew, in the silence that followed, that they wouldn't be doing that.  
  
"Let's eat."  
  
"The condemned mans hearty breakfast" he said quietly.  
  
"And womans." she said, her smile sad.  
  
  
  
It was as he'd expected, their connection irredeemably fractured. It was OK; he could deal with this. He could. Two birds with one stone: they were on each other's lists. It had to be done. Over dinner they'd traded small talk; she told him about rehab, he told her about therapy.  
  
"How's your Mom?"  
  
"Still Mom. Being good for now. How's your Grandmother?"  
  
"Still Gamma. Being good for now."  
  
"Coffee?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
  
  
"Are we going to get this over with?"  
  
"We should."  
  
"Me first. I'm the guest, right?"  
  
"I don't know what Miss Manners says about two addicts pooling step 9, but I'm sure you're right."  
  
"I want to say I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you. I was scared."  
  
"Scared of what?" He hesitated. He'd thought out how he'd explain this to her, but now it slipped from his grasp.  
  
"You were right. When you said I didn't really buy into the programme before. I did it because I had to to get my job back. If I'd committed to it properly - I wouldn't have been so freaked about you drinking again."  
  
"That's what scared you?"  
  
Carter nodded. "If it could happen to you - six years sober - where did that leave me. And I thought if I could turn it back it would be like it didn't happen."  
  
"It did happen. I did it. Not my Mom, not Brian, not you. Not Luka."  
  
Carter looked directly at her then. "You talked to him?"  
  
"Some. Before I left. Not enough."  
  
"I talked to him too."  
  
"I'm glad. I don't think we did right by him. "  
  
"No. We didn't do right by each other either, did we?"  
  
"I don't think so. We were good friends, Carter. I'd forgotten what being with someone meant - what it --- demanded. Luka paid for that. And you --- "  
  
"I wasn't thinking clearly. I broke the rules."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I fell in love." Abby looked away. "No, no, it's OK, I don't want you to feel bad about that. I thought I couldn't help it. But we can, if we try." Abby looked sceptical. "It didn't help you and Luka. I should have backed off."  
  
"You did. And me and Luka - we just got that wrong all by ourselves." Carter shook his head.  
  
"He was OK with me."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Luka. Cooked me dinner."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Really. I'm having to work hard not to like him these days." Abby smiled. "How about you?"  
  
"Me?"  
  
"Are you working at not liking him?" She shrugged. "He's a good friend." And he loves me she thought. "I - I knew how you felt about me, Carter, I always knew. It was a stupid game we played."  
  
"The thing is Abby, I can't play it any more. Not with you. I mean, we didn't really settle things before -"  
  
"I understand. You're right." Carter felt a tiny pang of disappointment.  
  
"There's something I need to tell you." Abby went on. "The night I went to Luka's place - "  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I - I hit on him."  
  
"You what?"  
  
"I told him I wanted to sleep with him."  
  
"And did you?"  
  
"Sleep with him? No!"  
  
"No - want to?"  
  
"Then? Yes. You may remember I was wasted at the time."  
  
"What did he say?"  
  
"Nothing. He called you." Carter considered this for a moment and then shook his head.  
  
"Well, it's a good thing one of us didn't have his head up his ass that night."  
  
"He's a good man."  
  
"Why did you need me to know this now?"  
  
"Because - it's who I was then. I don't think you knew what you were dealing with. You might feel better when you understand that."  
  
"I don't."  
  
"No. Not now. Later."  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Yes, you do. Think about it. You do know."  
  
"Is there any more coffee?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"And can I have a cigarette?"  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
They'd talked until very late, and it seemed to Carter that their lives no longer intertwined, that they never really had. They ran parallel, mirrored one another, never really meeting. They were too alike. He was having a hard enough time building up enough love for himself let alone enough for two of him. But in the end some ease had been restored, and he was eventually able to ask, his curiosity genuine  
  
"So, you and Luka, do you think you'll --- "  
  
"What?"  
  
"You know."  
  
"Oh. No, no. It's too soon for me to be thinking about anything like that." Liar, she thought. And he might think twice before getting that close to me again . "No - he's - like I said, he's a good man, a good friend. And we still have some fences of our own to mend." Carter nodded. He wanted to leave now. He was tired, had done what he came to do, and the pain had not been what he had expected it to be, the pain of not feeling more pinched him. Nostalgia was one addictive substance he didn't feel inclined to indulge in.  
  
At the door he hugged her lightly again, and kissed her cheek. As he was about to leave he turned back to her.  
  
"Abby?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"He makes better coffee than you."  
  
"You can go now Carter." 


	14. Chapter 14

Part XIII  
  
She was glad, and not for the first time, that she'd enlisted Kerry Weaver's help in easing her back. She hadn't been obliged to - this wasn't really anything to do with her employer. She'd never drunk at work, never been hung over at work - but Kerry had been sympathetic without being sentimental, supportive without being patronizing and business like without being uncaring. She'd helped Abby to focus on the day to day reality of coping with her situation and she was grateful. Kerry had scheduled her to work day shifts only for the first two weeks of December, and she'd found her stride with an ease that surprised her.  
  
Both Luka and Carter were watchful, unobtrusively mindful of the stresses to which she might find herself succumbing. They worked a mixed pattern of shifts and she found that she went days without seeing one or other of them. It was OK. She was able to drink coffee with Carter without feeling as though she were stabbing him through the heart. Sometimes she would look at him and wonder who it was that had shared his bed. She found it impossible to imagine that they had ever been lovers, and she had the suspicion that he felt the same. There was a subtle feeling of shared relief between them and she wondered if they'd ever acknowledge it. She thought probably not.  
  
Luka was a different proposition altogether. Him she couldn't sit with in companionable ease and found it almost impossible to forget that they'd once been lovers. She sensed his confusion when, on occasion, she refused his suggestions of lunch or a lift home. They'd been to a movie together and she'd been unable to remember a single thing about it, conscious only of him beside her in the dark. When he'd kissed her cheek after walking her home she'd jerked her head back and laughed uncomfortably, and he'd looked at her as though she'd slapped his face.  
  
And yet she wanted nothing so much as to talk to him, the huge volume of what she didn't know about him was like a reproach to her. She'd never asked him when they were together because she didn't know how, and she still didn't.  
  
Christmas was coming. Not the best of times for her, or for him she knew. She'd wondered about suggesting that they spend the holiday together but felt paralysed by uncertainty. She knew that she was in no position to get involved with anyone yet, but he was her friend and at a time when families should be together he felt his only through their absence. Carter she knew would be in Venice with his Grandmother.  
  
Abby's mother had asked her to spend Christmas in Minnesota; Eric had invited her to Florida. She didn't want to do either. Maybe they could come here and Luka could join them? No, no, no. In the end she brazened it out and asked him.  
  
"Got any plans for the holidays?"  
  
"Work."  
  
"All through?"  
  
"Pretty much." He paused. "I finish at noon on Christmas Eve and that night I'll be taking Rosa to the centre for a party. I was wondering if you'd like to come." He'd been wondering how to ask her and had almost decided not to, despite Rosa's constant nagging.  
  
"Dancing?"  
  
"Certainly."  
  
"Do I have to join in?"  
  
"Oh yes."  
  
"Well, I don't know. I have no sense of rhythm."  
  
"You don't need it. Follow everyone else and try not to get hurt."  
  
"You're not filling me with confidence here."  
  
"You'll be OK. I'm a doctor."  
  
She laughed then, in spite of herself. "I'll think about it."  
  
"Rosa will be very disappointed if you don't come. She'll even brief the Granddaughters to let you leave in one piece." Abby felt herself blush at this.  
  
"Do I need a bodyguard?"  
  
"You have no idea. You'll be the perfect cover."  
  
"How flattering." She was a little panicked by the invitation.  
  
"Come on," he said, "It'll be fun, I promise."  
  
"Well, as long as there'll be no cat fights."  
  
"No, no, we'll leave before then."  
  
"What?"  
  
"The traditional Croation Christmas Eve Cat Fight. Not pretty."  
  
"If you're trying to convince me there are better ways of doing it. OK I'll come, but only if I can sit by Rosa for safety."  
  
"And what are you doing?"  
  
"What? When?"  
  
"Christmas."  
  
"Apart from running the gauntlet of your jealous admirers? Nothing. I have the day shift Christmas Eve, but I'm off Christmas day."  
  
"Would you ." he faltered.  
  
"Would I what?"  
  
"I could come over after my shift. We could watch "It's A Wonderful Life" and feel sorry for ourselves together. Or you could come to me."  
  
"No, no, my place. No egg nog, but I'll cook . something. Maybe a goose." She said, inspired. Luka looked doubtful.  
  
"They're rather big for two, wouldn't you think?"  
  
"Maybe," she conceded. "Pasta?"  
  
"Probably safer."  
  
"OK. You pay for the video rental, right?"  
  
"You mean you don't own it?"  
  
"No, I do not own it."  
  
"I do."  
  
"So what do you pay for?" He considered for a moment.  
  
"The cab home."  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
3.00 pm Christmas Eve. Abby was beginning to question the wisdom of accompanying Luka tonight. The thought of a couple of hundred Croatians in full drink fuelled cry was making her nervous. And the granddaughters. She smiled to think that she'd be envy of every granddaughter in the place. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. "Cigarette." She said to herself, pulling her coat on and headed for the ambulance bay. She flattened herself against the wall as a gurney crashed through the doors with a curious lack of urgency and a bored paramedic intoned "Elderly female, 70 -75 years old, probable MI, unresponsive to ." his voice faded as the gurney moved past her and she turned back on her course, running straight into a very tall, very solidly built young man. The cigarette between her fingers was smashed to pieces.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"I'm sorry. I have to go in there with her." The last time Abby had seen this youth he'd been standing guard over Luka's car outside Rosa's apartment building. Protection.  
  
"You family? Is - is this your grandmother?"  
  
"I have to go in there with her. I have this." He held up a handbag.  
  
"OK, come on, I'll take you."  
  
Abby stood with Protection outside the trauma room as Susan Lewis and Jing Mei Chen worked on the old lady, but it was obvious that they were only going through the motions. She saw Susan glance at her watch, call the time of death. She glanced up at her companion and put a sympathetic had on his arm. "I'm sorry."  
  
"She's dead?"  
  
"I think so. I'll check." Protection held out the handbag to her.  
  
"All over?"  
  
"Yeah. Too little too late. Is that family out there?"  
  
"Her grandson. He seems OK. I have her handbag; ID and stuff might be in it I guess."  
  
"Thanks" Abby made to leave but stopped when she heard Susan speak again.  
  
"Rosa Petrovic. OK, Rosa, let's see if we can tell who to call for -"  
  
"Rosa?" said Abby turning back, almost not daring to look.  
  
"Yeah. Pretty name." Abby looked down at Rosa's face, the lips a grey- blue, her hair newly set. "You know her?"  
  
"No, not really. Excuse me. I have to call Luka."  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
Her hair smelled of lacquer and had been messed up by the oxygen mask dragged over it. He teased the curls back into place with one finger and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand; she'd had her nails done too he noticed. He slid his hand into hers, wincing a little at the coldness, the waxy feel of her fingers.  
  
"Hey.". He looked down to see Abby standing at his side. "She'd been to the beauty parlour. I guess she wanted to look nice for you." He nodded, mutely. "Protection brought her in." she added.  
  
"I know. I saw him. He's waiting for a lift home." He shook himself a little. "I should call the priest. He'll know what she wants - wanted - done, who to call."  
  
"Do you - do you want company?" He shook his head again. "No. No. I'll be sort of .busy." It seemed the wrong word somehow.  
  
"Luka, I'm so sorry." He just shrugged.  
  
"She was an old woman," he said, almost nonchalantly; "It happens." People die. Danijella, Jasna, Marko.  
  
"Luka, tomorrow -" He shook his head.  
  
"No, I don't think - "  
  
"Just for company." No answer. "OK, I'll call you . You still coming in?"  
  
"Yes. Yes, of course."  
  
"I'll ring." No answer.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
She lasted until 8 O'clock on Christmas night before picking up the 'phone. Either he wasn't there or he just wasn't answering. And he wasn't answering his door either she discovered not long afterwards. She had told the cab to wait in case of just such an eventuality and she got them lost twice before finding the right address. She couldn't even find it in herself to be outraged by the cost.  
  
The lift wasn't working now and she stopped at the top of the third flight of stairs to get her breath back. "Damned cigarettes," she said aloud. Rosa's door was ajar and she could hear voices, one she recognised as Luka's the other unknown to her. She pushed open the door. A priest. The two men were sifting through a sheaf of papers on the table before them. "Is it OK for me to be here?"  
  
Luka nodded and managed a smile. She waited while they concluded their business and then her attention was drawn back to them by what seemed to be a disagreement. The priest was holding something out to Luka insisting that he have it; Luka seemed equally insistent that he would not have it. Quite abruptly the priest reached for Luka's hand and a moment later, nodding to Abby, left the apartment.  
  
"You don't mind me coming?"  
  
"Of course not. I - I don't think there's much left to do. The priest called the granddaughter. She'll be here the day after tomorrow. She has a family."  
  
"The same granddaughter?"  
  
"Yes. She's a widow," he replied, shortly. He held up his left hand suddenly. "She wanted me to have this."  
  
"Rosa?"  
  
"She told the priest months ago apparently."  
  
"Her wedding ring." Luka nodded. The ring on his little finger, worn thin with age, gleamed dully in the lamplight. Luka seemed exhausted.  
  
"When's the funeral?"  
  
"30th. Round the corner."  
  
"Can you go?"  
  
"I'll go." He sat down heavily on the couch and threw his head back, eyes closed. "I've said I'll help clear the apartment when her granddaughter has taken what she wants. Not that there's much. I guess she'll mainly want these." He rested his hand on a shoe box on the couch at his side.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Photographs - and her few bits of jewellery. Her friends will come and take their pick of her other things and the rest will go to Goodwill I guess." He sat forward, elbows on his knees and head in his hands, and Abby wondered if he might be crying. Moving the shoe box she sat beside him and laid an arm across his back. He wasn't crying she found, just worn out. She picked up a handful of photographs and glanced through them. Some were old, black and white and a young woman, very recognisably Rosa seemed to be in most of them; with her rather stolid looking husband, with their children - the boy she knew to have died in Vukovar. More recent ones showed family weddings, holidays on sunny beaches, ancient skylines and the bluest of skies.  
  
"Is this home?"  
  
He glanced at the photograph briefly. "Looks like Dubrovnik." He'd been right, thought Abby. It was beautiful. She realised that he was twisting Rosa's wedding ring round and round on his finger.  
  
"Luka."  
  
"What?" his voice just a whisper.  
  
"Tell me."  
  
"Tell you what?" He didn't need an answer. He knew what. And, gazing down at a picture of the waters and skies of the Adriatic, he began. His childhood, by the sea, on the farm, happiness taken for granted. Round and round. School, college. Danijella. Danijella, love and absurd happiness. Taken for granted. Round and round Jasna. Marko, who had taken them by surprise and been delivered by his father with a neighbour's help on their kitchen floor. Round and round. Death, the shame of having been there to bury them. The horror that had been the hospital. A camp. She hadn't even suspected that. Release. Round and round. The agony of his father's grief. His escape from everything that spoke to him of happiness. And a vast, featureless period of years when he had felt nothing and been glad of it.  
  
"And then .you."  
  
She felt as though she'd been picked up and dropped from a height. "There was no-one - He shook his head. In that second the full horror their relationship had meant and the damage it had caused hit her with the force of a well aimed punch. She was glad she was sitting down.  
  
"I didn't know."  
  
He laughed, mirthlessly. "Wasn't it obvious?"  
  
"No." That was true. "I'm sorry., Luka. I didn't think."  
  
"It doesn't matter."  
  
"Don't say that."  
  
"Why not? And why are you sorry? It took two of us. I didn't turn you away."  
  
"You tried. I wouldn't let you get away from me."  
  
"You thought you were doing the right thing. I know that. I should have known better."  
  
"And afterwards ."  
  
"Let it go, Abby. It's done." She was shocked at the hopelessness in his voice.  
  
"I wish I'd known."  
  
"Yeah. Nice after dinner conversation."  
  
"And I hid from you too." She said softly.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You didn't really know me at all." He was silent for a long moment. "It seems to be a night for revelations."  
  
She shivered. The apartment was freezing, even in her coat. Luka reached behind her and draped a crocheted rug around her shoulders. She hoped that he'd leave his arm across her. He didn't. But he listened intently to the tragic-comedy of her childhood, her mother, now captivating, now terrifying; the suicide attempts; Richard; the abortion. She looked up at him then and waited.  
  
"And?" he asked.  
  
"I had an abortion."  
  
"I heard. And now you wish you hadn't?" His face was a picture of gentle concern. She looked down then.  
  
"No. It's just I always thought --- I was afraid that you --- you loved your kids and -"  
  
"What has this to do with me? " She didn't reply. "We decided to have our children, Danijela and me, and we loved them. You decided not to. It was right for you then. What should I have to say about it?"  
  
If God had opened up a vat marked "Regret" and sluiced Abby down with its contents. she couldn't have felt any worse. Deep breath. Carry on. Drinking; rehab; divorce. Luka; Carter; her mother's reappearance; her fear.  
  
And at 2.00am he stood up and led her by the hand into Rosa's bedroom where they lay down, in their winter coats and slept. 


	15. Chapter 15

Part XIII  
  
She was glad, and not for the first time, that she'd enlisted Kerry Weaver's help in easing her back. She hadn't been obliged to - this wasn't really anything to do with her employer. She'd never drunk at work, never been hung over at work - but Kerry had been sympathetic without being sentimental, supportive without being patronizing and business like without being uncaring. She'd helped Abby to focus on the day to day reality of coping with her situation and she was grateful. Kerry had scheduled her to work day shifts only for the first two weeks of December, and she'd found her stride with an ease that surprised her.  
  
Both Luka and Carter were watchful, unobtrusively mindful of the stresses to which she might find herself succumbing. They worked a mixed pattern of shifts and she found that she went days without seeing one or other of them. It was OK. She was able to drink coffee with Carter without feeling as though she were stabbing him through the heart. Sometimes she would look at him and wonder who it was that had shared his bed. She found it impossible to imagine that they had ever been lovers, and she had the suspicion that he felt the same. There was a subtle feeling of shared relief between them and she wondered if they'd ever acknowledge it. She thought probably not.  
  
Luka was a different proposition altogether. Him she couldn't sit with in companionable ease and found it almost impossible to forget that they'd once been lovers. She sensed his confusion when, on occasion, she refused his suggestions of lunch or a lift home. They'd been to a movie together and she'd been unable to remember a single thing about it, conscious only of him beside her in the dark. When he'd kissed her cheek after walking her home she'd jerked her head back and laughed uncomfortably, and he'd looked at her as though she'd slapped his face.  
  
And yet she wanted nothing so much as to talk to him, the huge volume of what she didn't know about him was like a reproach to her. She'd never asked him when they were together because she didn't know how, and she still didn't.  
  
Christmas was coming. Not the best of times for her, or for him she knew. She'd wondered about suggesting that they spend the holiday together but felt paralysed by uncertainty. She knew that she was in no position to get involved with anyone yet, but he was her friend and at a time when families should be together he felt his only through their absence. Carter she knew would be in Venice with his Grandmother.  
  
Abby's mother had asked her to spend Christmas in Minnesota; Eric had invited her to Florida. She didn't want to do either. Maybe they could come here and Luka could join them? No, no, no. In the end she brazened it out and asked him.  
  
"Got any plans for the holidays?"  
  
"Work."  
  
"All through?"  
  
"Pretty much." He paused. "I finish at noon on Christmas Eve and that night I'll be taking Rosa to the centre for a party. I was wondering if you'd like to come." He'd been wondering how to ask her and had almost decided not to, despite Rosa's constant nagging.  
  
"Dancing?"  
  
"Certainly."  
  
"Do I have to join in?"  
  
"Oh yes."  
  
"Well, I don't know. I have no sense of rhythm."  
  
"You don't need it. Follow everyone else and try not to get hurt."  
  
"You're not filling me with confidence here."  
  
"You'll be OK. I'm a doctor."  
  
She laughed then, in spite of herself. "I'll think about it."  
  
"Rosa will be very disappointed if you don't come. She'll even brief the Granddaughters to let you leave in one piece." Abby felt herself blush at this.  
  
"Do I need a bodyguard?  
  
"You have no idea. You'll be the perfect cover."  
  
"How flattering." She was a little panicked by the invitation.  
  
"Come on," he said, "It'll be fun, I promise."  
  
"Well, as long as there'll be no cat fights."  
  
"No, no, we'll leave before then."  
  
"What?"  
  
"The traditional Croation Christmas Eve Cat Fight. Not pretty."  
  
"If you're trying to convince me there are better ways of doing it. OK I'll come, but only if I can sit by Rosa for safety."  
  
"And what are you doing?"  
  
"What? When?"  
  
"Christmas."  
  
"Apart from running the gauntlet of your jealous admirers? Nothing. I have the day shift Christmas Eve, but I'm off Christmas day."  
  
"Would you ." he faltered.  
  
""Would I what?"  
  
"I could come over after my shift. We could watch "It's A Wonderful Life" and feel sorry for ourselves together. Or you could come to me."  
  
"No, no, my place. No egg nog, but I'll cook . something. Maybe a goose." She said. Luka looked doubtful.  
  
"They're rather big for two, wouldn't you think?"  
  
"Maybe," she conceded. "Pasta?"  
  
"Probably safer."  
  
"OK. You pay for the video rental, right?"  
  
"You mean you don't own it?"  
  
"No, I do not own it."  
  
"I do."  
  
"So what do you pay for?" He considered for a moment.  
  
"The cab home."  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
3.00 pm Christmas Eve. Abby was beginning to question the wisdom of accompanying Luka tonight. The thought of a couple of hundred Croatians in full drink fuelled cry was making her nervous. And the granddaughters. She smiled to think that she'd be envy of every granddaughter in the place. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. "Cigarette." She said to herself, pulling her coat on and headed for the ambulance bay. She flattened herself against the wall as a gurney crashed through the doors with a curious lack of urgency and a bored paramedic intoned "Elderly female, 70 -75 years old, probable MI, unresponsive to ." his voice faded as the gurney moved past her and she turned back on her course, running straight into a very tall, very solidly built young man. The cigarette between her fingers was smashed to pieces.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
"I'm sorry. I have to go in there with her." The last time Abby had seen this youth he'd been standing guard over Luka's car outside Rosa's apartment building. Protection.  
  
"You family? Is - is this your grandmother?"  
  
"I have to go in there with her. I have this." He held up a handbag.  
  
"OK, come on, I'll take you."  
  
Abby stood with Protection outside the trauma room as Susan Lewis and Jing Mei Chen worked on the old lady, but it was obvious that they were only going through the motions. She saw Susan glance at her watch, call the time of death. She glanced up at her companion and put a sympathetic had on his arm.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"She's dead?"  
  
"I think so. I'll check." Protection held out the handbag to her.  
  
"All over?"  
  
"Yeah. Too little too late. Is that family out there?"  
  
"Her grandson. He seems OK. I have her handbag; ID and stuff might be in it I guess."  
  
"Thanks" Abby made to leave but stopped when she heard Susan speak again ." "Rosa Petrovic. OK, Rosa, let's see if we can tell who to call for -"  
  
"Rosa?" said Abby turning back, almost not daring to look.  
  
"Yeah. Pretty name." Abby looked down at Rosa's face, the lips a grey- blue, her hair newly set. "You know her?"  
  
"No, not really. Excuse me. I have to call Luka."  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
Her hair smelled of lacquer and had been messed up by the oxygen mask dragged over it. He teased the curls back into place with one finger and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand; she'd had her nails done too he noticed. He slid his hand into hers, wincing a little at the coldness, the waxy feel of her fingers. "Hey.". He looked down to see Abby standing at his side. "She'd been to the beauty parlour. I guess she wanted to look nice for you." He nodded, mutely. "Protection brought her in." she added.  
  
"I know. I saw him. He's waiting for a lift home." He shook himself a little. "I should call the priest. He'll know what she wants - wanted - done, who to call."  
  
"Do you - do you want company?"  
  
He shook his head again. "No. No. I'll be sort of .busy." It seemed the wrong word somehow.  
  
"Luka, I'm so sorry." He just shrugged.  
  
"She was an old woman," he said, almost nonchalantly; "It happens." People die. Danijella, Jasna, Marko.  
  
"Luka, tomorrow -" He shook his head.  
  
"No, I don't think - "  
  
"Just for company." No answer. "OK, I'll call you . You still coming in?"  
  
"Yes. Yes, of course."  
  
"I'll ring." No answer.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
She lasted until 8 O'clock on Christmas night before picking up the 'phone. Either he wasn't there or he just wasn't answering. And he wasn't answering his door either she discovered not long afterwards. She had told the cab to wait in case of just such an eventuality and she got them lost twice before finding the right address. She couldn't even find it in herself to be outraged by the cost.  
  
The lift wasn't working now and she stopped at the top of the third flight of stairs to get her breath back. "Damned cigarettes," she said aloud. Rosa's door was ajar and she could hear voices, one she recognised as Luka's the other unknown to her. She pushed open the door. A priest. The two men were sifting through a sheaf of papers on the table before them. "Is it OK for me to be here?" Luka nodded and managed a smile. She waited while they concluded their business and then her attention was drawn back to them by what seemed to be a disagreement. The priest was holding something out to Luka insisting that he have it; Luka seemed equally insistent that he would not have it. Quite abruptly the priest reached for Luka's hand and a moment later, nodding to Abby, left the apartment.  
  
"You don't mind me coming?"  
  
"Of course not. I - I don't think there's much left to do. The priest called the granddaughter. She'll be here the day after tomorrow. She has a family."  
  
"The same granddaughter?"  
  
"Yes. She's a widow," he replied, shortly. He held up his left hand suddenly. "She wanted me to have this."  
  
"Rosa?"  
  
"She told the priest months ago apparently."  
  
"Her wedding ring." Luka nodded. The ring on his little finger, worn thin with age, gleamed dully in the lamplight. Luka seemed exhausted. "When's the funeral?"  
  
"30th. Round the corner."  
  
"Can you go?"  
  
"I'll go." He sat down heavily on the couch and threw his head back, eyes closed. "I've said I'll help clear the apartment when her granddaughter has taken what she wants. Not that there's much. I guess she'll mainly want these." He rested his hand on a shoe box on the couch at his side.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Photographs - and her few bits of jewellery. Her friends will come and take their pick of her other things and the rest will go to Goodwill I guess." He sat forward, elbows on his knees and head in his hands, and Abby wondered if he might be crying. Moving the shoe box she sat beside him and laid an arm across his back. He wasn't crying she found, just worn out. She picked up a handful of photographs and glanced through them. Some were old, black and white and a young woman, very recognisably Rosa seemed to be in most of them; with her rather stolid looking husband, with their children - the boy she knew to have died in Vukovar. More recent ones showed family weddings, holidays on sunny beaches, ancient skylines and the bluest of skies.  
  
"Is this home?"  
  
He glanced at the photograph briefly. "Looks like Dubrovnik." He'd been right, thought Abby. It was beautiful. She realised that he was twisting Rosa's wedding ring round and round on his finger.  
  
"Luka."  
  
"What?" his voice just a whisper.  
  
"Tell me."  
  
"Tell you what?" He didn't need an answer. He knew what. And, gazing down at a picture of the waters and skies of the Adriatic, he began. His childhood, by the sea, on the farm, happiness taken for granted. Round and round. School, college. Danijella. Danijella, love and absurd happiness. Taken for granted. Round and round Jasna. Marko, who had taken them by surprise and been delivered by his father with a neighbour's help on their kitchen floor. Round and round. Death, the shame of having been there to bury them. The horror that had been the hospital. A camp. She hadn't even suspected that. Release. Round and round. The agony of his father's grief. His escape from everything that spoke to him of happiness. And a vast, featureless period of years when he had felt nothing and been glad of it.  
  
"And then .you."  
  
She felt as though she'd been picked up and dropped from a height. "There was no-one - He shook his head. In that second the full horror their relationship had meant and the damage it had caused hit her with the force of a well aimed punch. She was glad she was sitting down.  
  
"I didn't know."  
  
He laughed, mirthlessly. "Wasn't it obvious?"  
  
"No." It was true. "I'm sorry., Luka. I didn't think."  
  
"It doesn't matter."  
  
"Don't say that."  
  
"Why not? And why are you sorry? It took two of us. I didn't turn you away."  
  
"You tried. I wouldn't let you get away from me."  
  
"You thought you were doing the right thing. I know that. I should have known better."  
  
"And afterwards ."  
  
"Let it go, Abby. It's done." She was shocked at the hopelessness in his voice.  
  
"I wish I'd known."  
  
"Yeah. Nice after dinner conversation."  
  
"And I hid from you." She said softly.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You didn't really know me at all." He was silent for a long moment. "It seems to be a night for revelations." She shivered. The apartment was freezing, even in her coat. Luka reached behind her and draped a crocheted rug around her shoulders. She hoped that he'd leave his arm across her. He didn't. But he listened intently to the tragic-comedy of her childhood, her mother, now captivating, now terrifying; the suicide attempts; Richard; the abortion. She looked up at him then and waited.  
  
"And?" he asked.  
  
"I said I had an abortion."  
  
"I heard. And now you wish you hadn't?"  
  
She looked down then. "No. It's just that I always thought --- I was afraid that you --- you loved your kids."  
  
"This isn't about e. We decided to have our children, Danijela and me; we loved them. You decided you couldn't. I can't judge for you. What should I have to say about it?"  
  
If God had opened up a vat marked "Regret" and sluiced Abby down with its contents. she couldn't have felt any worse. Deep breath. Carry on. Drinking; rehab; divorce. Luka; Carter; her mother's reappearance; her fear.  
  
And at 2.00pm he stood up and led her by the hand into Rosa's bedroom where they lay down, in their winter coats and slept. 


	16. Chapter 16

Part XIV  
  
The incense made Abby' eyes sore.  
  
She watched Luka; stood when he stood, knelt when he knelt, sat when he sat. Crossed herself, joined in the amens. Amen. The same in any language.  
  
The Catholic service was alien to her; its being conducted in Croatian made it surreal. She'd gone to the funeral because she feared the church being half empty and because Luka had not said no when she asked if she might. The church was full.  
  
He was to have been one of the pall bearers, but the lack of 5 other similarly tall men from the community presented a problem. She'd been relieved when he'd smiled telling her this. So, he had walked behind the coffin instead with Rosa's granddaughter, a small plain woman with a gaggle of teenage sons, and had then sought her out, when she had held his hand briefly. Amen.  
  
The tables along the side of the hall looked set to collapse under the weight of the food on them. The noise was immense. She couldn't help but compare it to the frigid affair which had followed the funeral of Carter's grandfather. Carter. Carter was she knew in Venice with his father and grandmother. She didn't envy him; realised that, bizarrely, she didn't at this precise moment envy anyone in the world.  
  
Luka she noted ate nothing. At the point at which the drink began to flow she found him at her side.  
  
"We should get going. They'll be singing soon and I don't think I'm up to it."  
  
"You OK?"  
  
"Sure. Actually, it's good to see a proper funeral. There was never time ."  
  
"I understand."  
  
"I should make my goodbyes. Come with me." He took her arm and together they went from one old lady to the next. The all took his hands in theirs and pulled him down to kiss his face; some embraced and kissed Abby too, smiling into her face and, she realised, repeating the same phrase to her. She nodded and smiled, not knowing what else to do. Finally Luka spoke to the priest and gave him an envelope from his pocket. Abby wondered if Luka had paid for the funeral, but was pretty sure that Rosa had made provision. As they were leaving Rosa's granddaughter beckoned Luka and handed him a brown paper package on which his name was written in emphatic capital letters. Luka seemed to protest, showed the woman Rosa's wedding ring which he wore on his left hand; indicated the woman's own sons. She shook her head and pressed the parcel against his chest before letting it go so that Luka must make a grab for it. The granddaughter crossed her arms so that he could not return it. He hesitated for a moment and then said something very quietly to her. She nodded and embraced him. And they were free.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
"You know," he said once they were outside "I couldn't stay in there, but I really could use a drink."  
  
"Me too."  
  
"Funny."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"No, no. It's a strange thing, you know. People cry at weddings, but I always want to laugh at funerals."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Some funerals."  
  
"Well, I'll stand you a drink. "  
  
"It's OK."  
  
"No, I'll be fine. Nothing in the rules to say I can't watch someone else drink, is there?" "I guess not. If you're sure."  
  
"Sure I'm sure. Come on."  
  
  
  
It wasn't as hard as she'd expected, maybe because of her concern for Luka.  
  
"What were they saying to me?"  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Your ladies."  
  
"Oh, that." He paused. "They were wishing you long life and happiness and - " he stopped abruptly. Abby was astonished to see him blush.  
  
"And what?"  
  
"And . many children."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"They assumed . " He didn't finish. The truth dawned.  
  
"Not really."  
  
"Really. Nothing to do with me! I never said a word."  
  
"You didn't set them straight, though."  
  
"You've seen the granddaughters. Don't be cross."  
  
"I'm not cross."  
  
"I think Rosa may have had a hand in it."  
  
"Oh, you do. And speaking of Rosa, what's in the package?" He seemed to have forgotten it. Opened it carefully and sat back with a sigh, staring at the ceiling. "I thought so." Inside the wrapping was a shirt of very fine white linen, its front and sleeves embroidered in a complex pattern of flowers and fruit.  
  
"Wow."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Her son's. She embroidered it for him. It's traditional dress."  
  
"Her son's?"  
  
"Mine now. Tatjana just said it was something of her father's. Her sons have her late husband's. Rosa wanted me to have this."  
  
"Do you have one of your own?"  
  
"Not any more." No. Of course not. Stupid question.  
  
"It's beautiful."  
  
"Well," he said, raising his glass, "To Rosa."  
  
"To Rosa." Who I hope will excuse a toast in diet Coke.  
  
In the end Luka got a little drunk. She watched him with some curiosity, realising that she'd not seen this before. Not miserable, belligerent, loud; just more of himself somehow, his gaze a little softer, his smile a little warmer. She felt a little drunk herself, watching him.  
  
"Keys" she said, holding out her hand. He dropped them into her palm.  
  
"I'm sorry. "  
  
"You earned it. You sort of missed Christmas, didn't you."  
  
"You too."  
  
"Yeah," she smiled, "but I get to drive the Viper, and you get to pay my cab fare."  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
"How do you not spend your life in Traffic School?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"This thing cannot be driven slowly. I feel like it's going to get away from me any minute."  
  
"You get used to it."  
  
"Not me. Why'd you buy it?"  
  
"Impulse. You know: fun."  
  
"Ah, yes fun. Expensive impulse."  
  
"I earned it."  
  
"I guess you did."  
  
"I've been thinking I'll sell it."  
  
"No! Why? You've only had it, what - two years?" She knew precisely how long he'd had the car.  
  
"Not quite."  
  
"So why?"  
  
"Something more practical - for my ladies when they need ferrying around. And it's not really suitable for funerals."  
  
"You planning on a lot of them?"  
  
"You've seen them, Abby. There'll be a few. Anyway, I think I got it out of my system." Abby didn't think he was talking about acceleration.  
  
"You did?"  
  
"Finally." That include me? She wanted to ask. Do you remember what you said to me?  
  
  
  
He managed his door keys perfectly well.  
  
"You want some coffee? I'll make it weak."  
  
"Sure. I'll just call a cab. Half an hour?"  
  
"Whatever suits you."  
  
Abby leaned against the counter as he made coffee.  
  
"You on tomorrow?"  
  
"Night."  
  
"New Years in the ER. Who could ask for more?"  
  
"What about you?"  
  
"New Year's Day." "That's for amateurs." He said. "Abby." He paused.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I want to say thank you for the last few days."  
  
"No need."  
  
"No, there is. It can't have been how you'd thought of spending Christmas."  
  
"Nor you."  
  
"I - didn't - don't expect much of Christmas any more."  
  
"I'm glad we had the chance to . to talk properly."  
  
  
  
They'd woken the day after Christmas curled together on Rosa' bed, cold, hungry, a bit groggy. Emotionally hung over. She hadn't wanted to move, but he'd nudged her upright, brushing her hair from her face with his hands, chaffing her fingers. They'd managed to make tea and toast from what Rosa had, and he'd stopped, his hand over his eyes when he saw the extra little luxuries she'd stockpiled for Christmas. A bottle of plum brandy, chocolate, cheese. Abby went to him and laid an arm across his back, rested her forehead on his arm. He wiped the tears from his eyes and took a deep breath. "Let's go." And he'd held her hand as they went down the stairs, but they barely spoke all the way to Abby's apartment where he leaned over and kissed her forehead.  
  
"The funeral?"  
  
"I'll call you."  
  
  
  
"Long overdue, huh?"  
  
"I guess."  
  
"I don't want you to worry. You've been very kind, but - I'm not your problem."  
  
"No, Luka, you're my friend."  
  
"You should make time for yourself is all. You've earned it."  
  
"We've been doing a lot of earning." He nodded.  
  
"There's your cab," he said as the door bell rang. He walked her downstairs and closed the cab door behind her, handing enough for the fare to the driver, then he turned to her. "I won't see you, so Happy New Year."  
  
"You Too." On an impulse she reached up and pulled him down to kiss his mouth. "Get some rest, Luka." 


	17. Chapter 17

PART XV  
  
This was in danger of becoming a habit. Twice now she'd kissed him out of nowhere.  
  
"I feel like it's going to run away with me any minute." She'd been talking about the Viper. She might as well have been talking about her heart which was threatening to crack her chest. What in the name of God had she just done? A friendly kiss for the new year. She knew there'd be plenty of those tomorrow night, and that Luka would be on the receiving end of many of them. A friendly kiss for the new year. Bullshit.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
This was in danger of becoming a habit. Twice now she'd kissed him out of nowhere.  
  
He'd stood on the street until he was too cold to bear it and made his way indoors; picked up her coffee cup and put it in the sink. What was this? A friendly kiss for the new year. If it had been Susan or Lydia or Haleh he'd have blushed a little, shrugged and thought no more about their teasing. But this was Abby. Abby didn't tease. What did Abby do, feel, think? He thought his head would split and he knew it wasn't because of the beers he'd drunk.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" She shouldn't be doing this, she needed time alone. She'd read the instructions on the packet often enough. But the time she'd spent with him, Rosa's death and the terrible and precious things he'd told her had pulled down her defences. The things he'd told her. She needed time to think those through. They had not mentioned any of them since. Waking up with his arms around her at Rosa's apartment she had not wanted to move; was aware that the last of her secrets had evaporated in the warmth of his acceptance. He knew it all now; hadn't missed a beat, and she cursed the fear, the shame and the self loathing in which she had hugged her secrets to her like monstrous offspring. But her fear and her shame and her self loathing were her defences and they were gone. And as yet she had nothing to put in their place.  
  
If He had told her that he had slept with 10 different women each year since he'd lost Danijella she would have found it easier to accept than the fact that she was the first. The second, she corrected herself. The second woman he had shared his bed with in his whole life. She should have felt proud; she felt terrified at the implications of it, understood with dazzling clarity his confusion and doubts. Dear God.  
  
She'd known as soon as she returned from rehab that she would fall in love with him, the longing she had resurrected before she'd left had taken hold of her in earnest. She had tried to guard against it. She was losing the fight. Surrender was not an option right now. She was faced only with retreat.  
  
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She shouldn't be doing this, she needed time alone. He knew that. And she must know that. So. A friendly kiss for new year. He wished she hadn't done it.  
  
When he'd woken at Rosa's apartment with Abby in his arms, as cold as he was, and as nauseous with hunger as he had felt, he hadn't wanted to move. He'd forgotten the way their limbs fitted together, how soft her hair was against his face. In the minutes after he woke he remembered their conversation of the previous night. He'd never thought he'd tell her any of those things. She'd wanted to know. He could have told her sooner. Her own revelations were less surprising. But she had sat and waited for him to deliver judgement and he'd read the astonishment in her face when it had not been forthcoming. They knew each other so little really. Knew each other so well.  
  
He didn't understand her feelings. His own he understood perfectly. He loved her. He had never stopped loving her. Didn't think now that he ever would. He wanted her to be happy. More than he wanted her to be with him. This wouldn't do it. He should back off a little. They'd spent too much time together and it was confusing the issue. Leave her be, Luka, leave her be.  
  
What do you think, sweetheart, what should I do?  
  
There was no answer. There never was.  
  
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	18. Chapter 18

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
  
  
"Happy New Year!"  
  
"Carter! Same to you. How was Venice?"  
  
"Beautiful, cold, expensive. I hardly missed my mother at all. How was your Christmas?"  
  
"Went to a funeral."  
  
"You're kidding."  
  
"Nope. Friend of Luka's died Christmas Eve."  
  
"Really? He OK?" Carter was surprised to find that his concern was genuine.  
  
"Yeah. She was an old lady, you know, they'd kind of adopted each other. So it was sad but not tragic. Some funeral though."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Those Croats know how to party. Even the dead ones."  
  
"They were all Croats?"  
  
"Pretty much. Quarter of a million of them in Chicago it seems. It's a wonder we only know one."  
  
"Maybe we don't."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Maybe they're all around us; the Balkan Mafia."  
  
"Hey, I've seen the old ladies. Give me the Mafia any day. And they're all besotted with Luka." Carter looked at her levelly.  
  
"Been seeing him a lot?"  
  
"Not really."  
  
"Really not really?"  
  
"No. Yes. I mean Rosa died and I kind of helped out with her place and went to the funeral is all." And told him the story of my life and heard his and lay with him all night and kissed him when I shouldn't and now I wish I'd kissed him some more because that'll probably be my last chance. " Haven't seen him since. Why?"  
  
"I think you should be careful, Abby."  
  
"Of what? The Balkan mafia?" she asked with a laugh. Carter moved away to pick up a chart, and leaned down to speak quietly in her ear as he did so.  
  
"Of yourself."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean that you shouldn't be - impulsive. I think -"  
  
"Drop it Carter."  
  
"I'm concerned, Abby."  
  
"Well, thanks for your concern, but it's really not necessary,"  
  
"Abby"  
  
"No. Just don't. He's a friend, Carter. And I'm not stupid." She moved away from him then, her previous good spirits evaporated.  
  
So, that's the way the wind blows, he thought. He was concerned. She must know well enough that she needed more time. He should - stop it. Be her friend, offer encouragement, nothing more. If she even wanted that from him. He realised suddenly that he had let go any hopes he had been cherishing about her. Well, whaddya know. He smiled. The relief was immense. Still, if she was allowing herself to think of Luka romantically again . maybe he should speak to Kovac. Perhaps he hadn't seen the signs. Yeah, right. Strangely he didn't doubt for a moment that Luka would be anything but honourable about this. He wondered, not for the first time, what the other man's feelings toward Abby were. Ask him, tell him to keep a distance. Well. He remembered the last time he'd done that. Or just keep out of it. It required only a moment's consideration for him to decide that this was his preferred option.  
  
"When you're done smiling to yourself, Carter, we have sick people back here!"  
  
"I got it Kerry."  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" He hated the coffee in the lounge, always had, always would. But he needed something and this was the closest approximation to coffee currently available .He had already spoken to Kerry and asked for his shifts to be rearranged. He could sense her curiosity, but offered no explanation. There was now minimal crossover with Abby's shifts. He hadn't seen her since Rosa's funeral and was glad of it. He was very much afraid that if he didn't put some distance between them he'd forget himself and forget too that although she had made so much progress she had for now to think only about herself. He'd thought about her kiss. She had drawn a line under her old life and moved on. If she hadn't she wouldn't have felt safe doing that. He should be glad for her. He was glad for her. And he tried to forget how much he'd wanted to kiss her back. Tried to forget how he had wanted to lie with her forever in Rosa's apartment in the cold. He wished she hadn't done it.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
"Hey! Happy New Year."  
  
"And to you."  
  
"So how was it in here?" She was trying hard not to think that the last time she'd seen him she'd reached up and drawn his mouth down to hers. A friendly kiss for New Year. If she said it often enough she might believe it.  
  
"Oh, colourful. Twenty seven different shades of vomit, couple cases of hypothermia, one near drowning and a fatal stabbing. And that was just my caseload."  
  
"Make any resolutions?"  
  
"No. Actually, yes I've just now made one. I am never going to drink this stuff again."  
  
"You're going to rely on Doc Magoo's and the Roach Coach? Brave man."  
  
"No. I'm going to buy a second machine and some decent coffee."  
  
"Just for you?"  
  
"For anyone who wants their coffee to taste of coffee."  
  
"And you're going to pay for it? Very philanthropic."  
  
"Well, you know me." Yes, I do. Now.  
  
"And expensive"  
  
"It has to be worth it. How about you?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Resolutions."  
  
"No new ones."  
  
"Good. They're a waste of time."  
  
"You never made any? Apart from the coffee I mean."  
  
"Yes. Lots. Never kept any though." His eyes rested on hers for a moment. "See you around."  
  
"Sure."  
  
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Way to go Abby. The kiss of death. She could not have scared him away any better if she'd done it deliberately. He had told her he loved her. Well there was love and love, wasn't there. Perhaps it was just as well. She couldn't afford to be with anyone just now. The meetings seemed to take up nearly all of her time, she was tired and it was dark at 4.00 pm and in four days time it would be the anniversary of her birth and the anniversary of the first drink she'd taken in nearly six years. She thought briefly of Carter. It would be a year since he'd seen Sobricki again. Was he working the same shift as her? Maybe they could go out, eat, chat. They both had a lot they wanted not to think about on January 10th. 


	19. Chapter 19

PART XVII  
  
The morning they'd woken at Rosa's apartment they'd been impossibly shy of each other, worse than after their first night together. Revealing one's soul was after all infinitely more intimate than revealing one's body. She didn't remember them speaking more than a dozen words, from the minute he'd helped her to sit up, clearing her hair from her eyes, his fingers stiff with cold to the minute he left her at her apartment. She felt transformed by what she knew about him and by what she had told him of herself.  
  
And now she didn't know where to start. All talked out it seemed.  
  
And then she'd kissed him. She wished she hadn't done it. She was so glad that she had.  
  
She could tell her sponsor; her therapist. She could tell Carter. No. Not that. He'd seemed to have moved past their break up, but she couldn't be sure and knew too that she didn't want to deal with his disappointment if she was wrong.  
  
She could pretend that nothing of significance had happened. Maybe it hadn't. Perhaps he thought nothing of it. She could almost have convinced herself of it. Except for the shifts. She'd seen Kerry's paperwork, knew what he'd done. He didn't think nothing of it.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
"What time are you off?"  
  
"Seven."  
  
"Got plans?"  
  
"No." No. " Why?"  
  
"You know what day it is?"  
  
"Yes." She said, shortly.  
  
"I was wondering if you'd keep me company over dinner? I don't want to be alone this evening, and I don't think a meeting is the place to be feeling like this. "  
  
"Sure, Carter. Glad to." It's only my birthday; nothing else to do.  
  
"You OK?"  
  
"Never better"  
  
"See you in the lounge at seven, then?"  
  
"You got it."  
  
Well, some things don't change she thought. The post that morning had brought birthday cards from her mother, from Eric, from a couple of fiends, from her sponsor. Nothing from Richard. Or Luka. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
She'd been hoping not to see him, but when she went to the lounge to get her coat he was there taking his off.  
  
"You off?"  
  
"Absolutely. I have a date." She could have bitten her tongue off.  
  
" A date?"  
  
"Carter wanted some company." She paused. "It's a year today that Paul Sobricki came back to the ER." Even better. Never explain.  
  
"Oh." Another pause. They did pauses so well, she thought. "Somewhere nice?"  
  
"I hope so. I'm jilting my couch and the TV for this."  
  
"Greater love hath no woman." She looked sharply at him then. But he was smiling.  
  
"You ready?" Damn. He'd hoped not to see Luka; was about to explain; thought better of it. He had the feeling that he was interrupting something. "I'll see you out front. I have to check something at the desk." And he almost ran from the room. Abby started to follow.  
  
"Catch you later" she said to Luka.  
  
Luka closed his locker door.  
  
"Abby?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
He handed her a package. "Happy Birthday." And he left her.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
"What's in the package?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Open it."  
  
"No, it'll keep."  
  
"Come on, open it. I'm not ordering until you open it."  
  
Abby's hands were a little unsteady as she removed the wrapping. She laughed aloud.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
She held up the video cassette.  
  
"" It's A Wonderful Life"?"  
  
"It's from Luka.. It's my birthday." She added. She was suddenly pleased that it was her birthday.  
  
"Today? You sure?" She didn't dignify that with a response. "God, Abby, I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't be. This dinner is going to cost you. Big time."  
  
It didn't escape Carter's notice that her spirits had lifted. He felt in complete control of himself, despite the occasion and had become aware of a kind of good humoured warmth toward Abby that he hadn't felt since the earliest days of their friendship. He was astonished to find that this extended to Luka and stopped for a moment to try and understand that. What the hell, he thought. Sometimes when you turn round to take stock of where you are the amount of road you've covered takes you by surprise. He was surprised now. Surprise made him bold.  
  
"It's only seven months."  
  
"Since when?"  
  
"Until August."  
  
"August?"  
  
"A year. Since you went into rehab."  
  
"And?" She knew exactly what he was talking about.  
  
"Just saying."  
  
"Well say it then!"  
  
"You can wait that long. If you think it's going to be worth it." Abby turned to look out of the window, fighting a smile.  
  
"You really think you've got me taped, huh?"  
  
"Don't I?" She didn't answer that. "Abby? Don't I?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Yes you do."  
  
"I don't."  
  
"Yes, you do. I should hate him of course."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"The Maitre d'. Who do you think?"  
  
"But you don't?"  
  
Carter shook his head. "Too much effort. You know, for the longest time I wanted to be him."  
  
"Be him?"  
  
"Not literally. Be what he is."  
  
"Which is?"  
  
"A grown up."  
  
She nodded. "I know."  
  
"And the world's worst liar."  
  
"He lied to you?"  
  
"No. But he's lying to you. And to himself."  
  
"And when did you acquire this insight into human nature, Peter Pan?"  
  
"I don't know. I've had to rethink a lot of stuff. I've looked at myself until I thought I'd go blind. Luka, he could have told me to go f**k myself, and I wouldn't have blamed him.. He didn't. At first I thought it was because I wasn't worth the effort for him, but it wasn't. He's a good man, Abby." He added softly. Damn, Hell has now frozen over.  
  
"I know."  
  
"You do."  
  
"Yes"  
  
"And?"  
  
"I don't think it's up to me, Carter."  
  
"Sure it is." She shook her head.  
  
"Well, you'll grow old and die waiting for him. And I don't think I can bear to watch it."  
  
"Then don't look."  
  
"Abby. Just - give him a hint."  
  
"I already did."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I kissed him."  
  
"When?"  
  
"After Rosa's funeral."  
  
"Nice."  
  
"I - I didn't mean to. It was for New Year."  
  
"He believe that?"  
  
"I don't think so. He's been avoiding me."  
  
"No, I'm sure - "  
  
"He changed his shifts, Carter."  
  
He ran a hand through his hair. "Perhaps he thinks he's letting you off the hook. He knows you're not supposed to be going there right now, doesn't he?" No answer. "Brazen it out. Make like nothing happened. Maybe you'll convince him. Buy you some time at least." "I don't know. I think he's afraid of me."  
  
"I don't blame him."  
  
"Oh, you don't."  
  
"No. Do you?"  
  
"No. Not really. I hurt him. There are things I know now --- "  
  
"Things?"  
  
"His wife, his kids. Me."  
  
"You?" She shook her head. Oh no, mister, you don't get to know that. Not ever.  
  
"Go for it, Abby." He said as he looked at the bill. "Because there's no way in hell I'm standing you another dinner like this next year."  
  
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She'd been about to call Luka and thank him for the birthday present when there was a knock at her door. For a moment she wondered; no, he was working still. It was her neighbour, almost invisible behind a huge sheaf of flowers. Carter had been kidding all along.  
  
"These came for you earlier. There's a card. Your birthday?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Many happy returns, dear. Been celebrating?"  
  
"Kind of. " She took the flowers and closed the door before the woman could get another word out. Smiling she opened the card.  
  
'And these I owe you for last year. Luka' 


	20. Chapter 20

PART XVIII  
  
The elderly man had been raving since he'd arrived, picked up from the road after falling almost beneath the wheels of a 'bus. It seemed fairly obvious that his arm and collar bone were broken, but he would allow no-one near him for a proper examination, let alone X-rays. Carter, Haleh and Malik stood and pondered. It was this tableau that caught Abby's eye as she passed.  
  
"What's up?"  
  
"Won't let us near him Doesn't seem to speaka ze English, and I don't recognise the language."  
  
"I do. I think."  
  
"What? What is it?"  
  
"You should get Luka."  
  
"It's Croatian?"  
  
"Similar at least"  
  
"Is he here?"  
  
"Just got in."  
  
"Can you go find him?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
She found him in the lounge. Luka didn't understand why he always felt as though he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't when she turned up unexpectedly.  
  
"Carter has a problem" Just the one?  
  
"What?"  
  
"He needs an interpreter. I think his patient's from your neck of the woods."  
  
"Show me"  
  
"I meant to call you," she said as they walked. "The flowers were beautiful."  
  
"I'm glad you liked them."  
  
"And the tape. You missed out on it at Christmas - come and watch it with me sometime."  
  
"Did you enjoy your dinner?" Ignoring the invitation.  
  
"I enjoyed watching Carter paying for it." At least that got a smile "In here."  
  
He sat in front of the old man and listened for a moment before saying something to him.. The words seemed to have an almost magical effect and the man stopped shouting and began to respond.  
  
"He has a daughter. You can reach her here." Luka wrote something down and handed the paper to Haleh, before turning his attention back to the patient, who was evidently asking him a question. Following Luka's one word answer the old man leaned in very close and said, a note of disbelief in his voice  
  
"Hrvatska?"  
  
Luka nodded.  
  
"Do you want to take him, because I - " Carter stopped abruptly. As he had been speaking the old man had stood up, drawn back his good arm and delivered a stinging slap to Luka's face.  
  
"Hey!" Carter and Malik stepped forward, but Luka had got to his feet and backed away.  
  
"It's OK. He doesn't want to hurt anyone else. I think you'll have to wait for the daughter though". He made for the door as the man grew agitated once again, hurling what was evidently a stream of invective after Luka.  
  
"What is it?" asked Carter who had followed him. Abby stood where she was, her hand to her mouth.  
  
"He's a Serb," explained Luka, mildly "and he would rather die than permit my filthy Croat hands to touch him." He stopped, listening to the continuing tirade. "And . he wants me dead ," another pause to listen " and he seems to think," he continued, smiling wryly, "that my ancestry includes a number of farm animals and that - no, I don't think I can repeat that in mixed company." He smiled briefly at Abby; looked Carter in the eye. "I think I should probably leave. This is making him worse."  
  
He looked over Carter's head to where the old man still stood and raised his voice to say something before turning and leaving the room. The old man yelled a final phrase at him in which the one word recognisable to Abby was "Vukovar". Carter turned his astonished gaze to Abby; nodded after Luka and then made towards the rapidly subsiding patient. Malik moved forward with him and they pushed him back onto the gurney. Carter was ashamed to feel a little spasm of pleasure as he yelped with pain. And he caught Malik's smile.  
  
"Calm down, Sir, your daughter will be here soon."  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
She couldn't follow him into the mens roomof course, but it wasn't easy to look purposeful while she waited for him to come out though. When he did his hair was damp, finger marks still glowing on his cheek.  
  
"Stronger than he looks, eh?" he said with a tight smile.  
  
"I guess so. You OK?"  
  
"Yes. Of course." He stopped. "No, not really."  
  
"Come and get some coffee."  
  
"Aren't you off now?"  
  
"Doesn't matter. Come on." Meekly he allowed her to lead him back to the lounge.  
  
"You did it."  
  
"Did what?"  
  
"The machine."  
  
"Oh. Yes. No-one seems to be drinking the other stuff now."  
  
Abby poured his coffee and sat on the low table opposite his seat on the couch. He didn't speak for a long moment; Abby knew better than to prompt him.  
  
"He said 'Hail to the Victors of Vukovar'. I don't suppose he knew ."  
  
"No."  
  
He gave a short laugh. "Ridiculous. Half way round the world and we run into each other." She smiled sadly. "And somewhere an émigré Croat is cursing a Serb and on it goes --- "  
  
"And at home, too?"  
  
"Home? Oh, not in Croatia, not now. But some places, yes. It won't ever end."  
  
"I'm sorry." She reached out her hand to rest it on his knee. Luka didn't often want to cry; he did now. He took a deep breath.  
  
"Ah, well. There are worse things than being called the son of a couple of syphilitic goats. I suppose.  
  
"I guess so." And you know what they are, don't you?  
  
He smiled at her then and her heart turned to water. "I'd better get back." She moved away from him then and as he left the lounge she said  
  
"Luka."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"The flowers. They meant a lot. Thank you."  
  
"The least I could do." He lingered for a moment as though he was about to speak. But he said nothing and went on his way. """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
The temptation to return the slap with all his strength had been fleeting but powerful and had left him ashamed. One pathetic, feeble old man and all his helpless rage had come flooding back.  
  
I'm sorry, sweetheart. He took me by surprise  
  
He'd felt uneasy since talking to Abby at Rosa's. Relieved to have told her, told anyone, really. Still he'd stirred up feelings best left undisturbed. The memory of the weeks he'd spent in the camp he had not revisited in very many years, and was having difficulty putting away now. He was surprised that he could so clearly recollect the sensation of chronic, gnawing hunger, the cold, the pain and the shameful fear of death. He'd thought that he wanted to die after Vukovar, hadn't cared whether he'd died in the shelling of the hospital. There was something soothingly arbitrary and anonymous about that. But faced with the possibility of a gun aimed specifically at him, at Luka Kovac, then he had been afraid. He remembered Bishop Stewart : "I am afraid to die." If Luka was honest he had not been afraid of death; he'd been afraid of dying, afraid that he would not do it well. In the end it had not been asked of him and he had gone from the camp to his father where he had gone on to let himself die anyway.  
  
He had felt a little stab of pride when Abby had come after him, had laid her hand on him. And when he'd been able to talk to her without the cold sickness of self pity clinging to him. He could even smile a little at that. A little.  
  
I'm sorry, sweetheart.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
The coffee at Carter's meeting was worse than the stuff in the lounge. Of course Kovac had good coffee. Carter could not quite bring himself to drink it. There were limits. If he hurried he could get back to County for the end of Luka's shift.  
  
He'd been at once fascinated and appalled by the incident with the old man that morning. Not that he hadn't seen sudden outbursts of violence before. And not only seen them. But the sight of the apparently frail old man hitting Kovac with a force powered by pure loathing had turned his stomach. Kovac had been very calm. He'd seen worse. Of course. And if Abby had been in starting blocks she couldn't have been any readier to follow him out of the room. Carter glanced at his watch. 10.00 pm. He had a feeling that Kovac wouldn't linger tonight. Sure enough, five minutes later he saw him leaving the ER.  
  
"Hey, Luka."  
  
"Carter?"  
  
"You got plans?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Come on. I'm going to buy you a drink."  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
"That was pretty wild." Wild?  
  
"It's one word for it." Luka's tone was guarded.  
  
"I mean it's . how many years?"  
  
"Some memories --- linger."  
  
"Seemed pretty personal."  
  
"I guess it felt personal." Luka's veins were starting to sing under the influence of the vodka. "Ten years is nothing." The merest hint of bitterness was detectable to Carter. "For you too?"  
  
"For me too."  
  
"But you didn't . I mean you backed off."  
  
"An old man."  
  
"Packed a punch, though."  
  
"Hatred is a great motivator." They were silent for a long moment. "Vukovar was beautiful" said Luka, suddenly. "Ancient, you know?" He smiled. Just. "All of Croatia is ancient. When I first came here I didn't understand how a building put up a hundred years ago could be called old. The church I was married in was 500 years old."  
  
"You were married in church?"  
  
"Everyone is married in church. After a civil ceremony."  
  
"You were religious?"  
  
Luka shrugged. "As religious as the next man. Then."  
  
"How old were you?"  
  
"20. Danijella was a year younger."  
  
"How long had you known her?"  
  
"What is this? Twenty questions?"  
  
"Just curious."  
  
"Yeah, I'm a curiosity." Another silence.  
  
"At the end the city was . " He stopped. His hands rested on their outer edges, palms facing, a few inches apart. "The houses were . " He lowered his hands gently, one on top of the other, palms downwards. " . .Like houses of cards. Flat. Turned in on themselves. Like someone . stepped on them. Worse further out. Sometimes you could make out little pieces of peoples' lives; furniture, curtains, books. Toys." Carter's eyes moved from Luka's hands to his face. Luka's eyes remained fixed on his hands.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"To your family,"  
  
Luka shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He reached for his glass; found it empty.  
  
"I've got it." In truth Carter didn't want to move from the table. He felt as though threads of unimaginable fragility and strength had wrapped themselves around him, binding him to the man sitting across from him. In the end he asked the barman for the bottle. Luka's raised eyebrows said more than words.  
  
"You trying to get me drunk?"  
  
"Of course." Luka laughed at that. "So?" said Carter.  
  
"Do I have to tell you? I mean . you?"  
  
"Sure you do."  
  
"They died. It's not complicated. An artillery shell, whatever else it is, is not complicated."  
  
"Except?" "I watched them die. Danijella, Jasna. Marko was dead by the time I got there. I saw her born. I saw her die."  
  
"That's hard."  
  
"Harder on them."  
  
"No."  
  
"No?" They're out of it."  
  
"Like Lucy."  
  
"Yeah . like Lucy. There's no way you could have stopped it." If he said it often enough he could convince himself.  
  
"Doesn't help." He looked at Carter then. "Does it?"  
  
"No." He poured another measure into Luka's glass.  
  
"You know I . I really don't drink."  
  
"Maybe you should."  
  
"Alone?"  
  
"Party for one. Sometimes it's the best kind."  
  
"It's not the answer."  
  
"No. Not all the time. Tell me about the hospital."  
  
"What?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"In Vukovar."  
  
"What's to tell?"  
  
"Why did you go there?"  
  
"Where else? My home was gone. There was nowhere else. It was my job."  
  
"Bad?"  
  
"Bad. The basement was the only safe place. No light; no supplies; no hope." He drained his glass. Poured another shot. "Do you have a cigarette?"  
  
"No. I can get some." Luka nodded.  
  
The harsh rasp of the drag felt good in Luka's throat. Already a little light headed from the vodka the nicotine made his head swim.  
  
"I didn't know you smoked."  
  
"I don't." He shrugged then. "I did. Sometimes I just want to . be who I was." Carter nodded. Understood.  
  
"There were people in the hospital," Luka said, "People whose lives we saved. When they came they took them and shot them. I was with a woman who had delivered her baby two days before. They killed her. But they killed her baby first. I did nothing." Carter's blood felt like ice in his veins. "I think she wanted to die then. I know I did."  
  
"What did they do with you?"  
  
"Some of us they shot there and then. The lucky ones. The rest they took to a camp. Brought their wounded to us to treat. To save. I saved them. I didn't know what else to do."  
  
"Have you . told Abby about this?"  
  
"Abby?" Carter nodded.  
  
"Some. It's sort of hard, you know? How do you tell people this?"  
  
"She's strong." Luka shook his head, threw back another shot. "Not that strong. Why should she be? Why should anyone be?"  
  
"Because you are."  
  
Luka's laugh was harsh. "I have no choice."  
  
"How do you do it?"  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Live. Care." A pause. "Love."  
  
"Because," Luka said, deliberately, "Danijella and Jasna and Markro can't live, or care or love. I have to do it for them."  
  
"Well. You need to tell her."  
  
"Who?" He knew who.  
  
"Who do you think? You've been avoiding her."  
  
"I haven't."  
  
"You changed your shifts."  
  
"It's best if she has some space."  
  
"You know she's in love with you."  
  
"I don't know that."  
  
"Open your eyes, Kovac." Carter couldn't keep the edge out of his voice.  
  
"My eyes are open. How clear do you think her feelings are?"  
  
"Clear enough."  
  
"I think she's waiting."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"For you." Carter shook his head. "No. We were . a mistake."  
  
"How?"  
  
"We didn't have the sense to . draw the line. She is in love. With you. You should know that.. Look at me."  
  
Luka didn't.  
  
"Look a t me." Luka's gaze was filled with anxiety.  
  
"Do you love her?"  
  
"Yes." No hesitation there. Carter nodded and put the stopper in the vodka bottle; handed it to Luka.  
  
"Then work out how you're going to make it to the end of August.." He stood up and Luka did the same. Carter was struck afresh by the mans height. "And then - go for it."  
  
Luka regarded him levelly. "And you?"  
  
"Yesterday's man. And woman, actually. I know a done deal when I see one. Let's get you a cab."  
  
As he shut the car door behind Luka he leaned in and said "You know, Kovac?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"I kinda like you."  
  
"OK" said Luka. 


	21. Chapter 21

PART XX  
  
The insistent whine of an electric drill pulled Luka out of sleep. For a moment he wondered whether the sound might actually be in his head; vodka in quantity can do that to a person. No. One or other of his neighbours was evidently in full DIY mode, and it was clearly going to be pointless trying to get back to sleep. Get up, Luka  
  
The shower was too hot for comfort as he stood, arms braced against the wall in front of him, willing his head to clear. He wondered whether Abby and Carter had colluded in a plan to drink vicariously through him. Well, he didn't mind obliging occasionally, as long as they agreed to have the vicarious hangover in return.  
  
Clean, shaved, dressed and he felt halfway human. The coffee helped. Thank God he wasn't at work until seven.  
  
He was a little unsettled by what he'd allowed himself to divulge to Carter; he nursed a vague sense of having devalued something. Had he?  
  
What do you think, sweetheart?  
  
Get out, get out of doors. Walk.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" By the time he'd made his way down to the lakeside the sense of disquiet nagging at him had crystallised into something like panic. Abby. This was about Abby. Luka didn't blush easily but he could feel the colour in his face as he thought about what Carter had said. "You know she's in love with you." Is she? He knew that she'd been mending fences, trying to find a way to forgive herself, and him, for their failure. She'd told him things about herself which he suspected only a very few people in her life had known. It occurred to him now that possibly no-one had ever known as much about her as he now knew, maybe not even herself. And he realised too that she knew more about him than any living soul.  
  
So. She trusted him; she liked him, maybe even loved him. But this was not the same as being in love, was it? Was it? He didn't know; didn't know how to read her, cursed himself for this illiteracy. He'd never had to do this before. Danijella and he had looked at each other with instantaneous recognition. After she'd been lost to him he hadn't even tried. Carol had confused him, changing their relationship to something more than friendship, unaware of the harm she had the power to do. And then thought better of it. Abby he had never understood, and he now knew why. He'd been trying to use a map with almost all of its major landmarks missing from it, and in trying to navigate with it had become hopelessly lost. Well, the map was more complete now but he no longer had any idea of what he was expected to do with it. Was he supposed to look at it as a reminder of a place he'd once been, only now fully appreciating the landscape? Or was he expected to use it to revisit that landscape, prepared for the obstacles and cliff faces which had defeated him before.  
  
God alone knew, and He wasn't telling.  
  
He was cold. A feeble January sun struggled to make its presence felt. He'd grown up in the sunshine, his brother and him, their friends, like sunflowers, unstoppable. He'd married in the summer; Jasna and Marko were spring babies The cold had kept memory at bay, had mirrored the state of his soul; he'd grown to welcome it. Now he wasn't so sure and got to his feet, started to walk, wanting to feel the blood flowing.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
Bosnia had been as cold as hell, almost medieval in its lack of amenities, of supplies, of hope. He'd gone there with the vague hope of regaining a sense of perspective and it hadn't taken him long to achieve it. In the years since the war it seemed that the place had settled into a kind of dull hopelessness, as though despair and misery had seeped into the earth beneath his feet. The group of medics with whom he'd been working had instinctively drawn together, looking to each other for the spark of normality it was so easy to lose sight of there. A couple of Austrians, a German, two British, an Argentinian; and Irma. Irma was from Norway and as used to the cold as he'd once been used to the warmth of the sun.  
  
He'd fallen into an easy friendship with her, surprised himself at the ease with which they'd grown comfortable with each other. The place did that, he thought, set you to grabbing little bits of warmth, of humanity. He'd appreciated her pale, slender good looks, her intelligence; she'd been quick to laugh and it had dawned on him slowly that her smile changed a little for him, became a little warmer, her laughter a little softer. Her eyes sought him out, held his gaze, an unasked question there. And he was beginning to consider his answer.  
  
If the idea of learning to tango in the depths of a Balkan winter had seemed too ridiculous to contemplate no-one dared say so to Eduardo Henriques, the Argentinian who propounded the plan with evangelical zeal. There were more men than women in their party and Luka had offered to sit out the exercise; Irma was having none of it. In the end they had all laughed 'til they cried; pupils in winter coats and boots presented Eduardo with unlooked for problems, but his enthusiasm was infectious and Luka could now say that, yes, he could tango. He would probably have to put on several layers of clothing to recreate the right conditions if ever he wanted to do it again, but, still, there it was. Irma had staked her claim to him immediately. Her body against his, even through the sweaters and coats, had felt good, the promise it held unmistakable, her longing for him palpable. But his consideration of whether to take her up on it had been a purely intellectual exercise. He didn't want her. And thinking about it now, remembering how, as their time together neared its end her eyes had reproached him, full of disappointed desire, he knew why it had never been a real possibility.  
  
He was spoken for.  
  
And that was it. He stopped, looked out over the water. In the end it didn't matter what the precise nature of Abby's feelings were; the precise nature of his own were very clear to him and he had to be true to them. Whatever else happened she had entrusted herself to him; he could not un- know what she had told him. She'd given him the map and he would use it. would be there when she needed a hand onto firmer ground; would withdraw when she needed to proceed alone across the landscape now facing her, would give directions if asked. If she loved him that was enough; he was not about court madness worrying about the nature of that love.  
  
Luka decided he was tired of being cold and turned toward home. 


	22. Chapter 22

PART XXI  
  
It was the hardest letter she'd ever had to write, but had reasoned that this was the only way to do it. Too much crackled in the air between them when they spoke and she had too much at stake now to risk sliding into recrimination and accusation.  
  
She tried to imagine him opening the letter, to see his face as he read. He'd moved on so far, overtaken her way back. And really, they'd travelled together for such a short time and so seldom in step. She'd stumbled often and when he'd paused to help her up she'd always shaken him off. She wondered now about how much she'd held him back, how much she'd hurt him. Well, they were on different roads now alright and she wanted to wish him Godspeed on his. She'd no longer be travelling with him; he'd hit the highway while she continued to negotiate the back roads, still taking frequent wrong turns. Time to let go once and for all.  
  
And if I can stop thinking in these preposterous clichés I might even manage to say what I want to say.  
  
The paper stared blankly up at her from the table. She picked up her pen and began to write.  
  
"Dear Richard,"  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
9.30 am February 14th. Carter sat on the El feeling slightly nauseous. He knew before hearing them that greetings today would be artificially cheerful, that they would sigh with relief when he passed them by, would have been hoping that they were not to share his shift or have to work alongside him. He didn't blame them.  
  
That morning he'd braved the breakfast table, sat out his grandmother's studied unconcern, thought about trying to take the day off. To do what? It was at this point that he made up his mind to go in to work, get through the day by one means or another. It had to be done. If the endless hours of therapy had taught him nothing else it had taught him that.  
  
He thought of those who would not be there today. Mark, Benton, Cleo, Malucci, Jeannie, Carol. And Lucy. Everything changes. Even me, he thought.  
  
Abby, Kerry, Romano, Luka. Still there. Luka. How many days like this every year had he got through, those around him insensible to his suffering? Three birthdays; three deaths; a wedding anniversary. Good God, his year must be like an obstacle course. He remembered what Luka had said to him. "Danijella, Jasna, Marko; they can't live, care, love. I have to do it for them." Well Lucy had wanted to be a doctor, had wanted it with a passion. She couldn't do it now; he would have to do it for her.  
  
He was right of course. Those who remembered smiled too brightly, spoke too cheerfully, even Kerry. Never mind. They cared; it was more than they had done for Luka. Himself included. If the concern of others had sometimes felt like too great a weight to carry he decided now to simply relax under its pressure. He understood why Luka's past was something he had guarded. The concern of others. "Are you OK?" It had become a mantra, and one he had learned to loath.  
  
He looked up at the board. He could do this.  
  
"In 14 hours it will be February 15th" said a voice in his ear. A hand rested lightly on his shoulder for a moment and then Luka went on his way.  
  
14 hours. And counting. He could do this.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
"In like a lion, out like a lamb." The old saw was half right at least. "In like a lion, stayed like a lion, almost certain to go out like a lion" was nearer the mark for this March. It would be April in two days time. Spring and new starts.  
  
More new starts How many new starts could a gal take?  
  
Her apartment gleamed. Three boxes of stuff for Goodwill stood by the door. This was a good feeling. The newly made curtains lay draped over the couch, and only now did she stop to wonder how she'd hang them single handed. She'd enlisted the help of the neighbour's husband to take down the old ones, but she knew them to be out. She could wait 'til they got back from their trip tomorrow. She didn't want to wait; she'd made new curtains. She wanted to hang them.  
  
Where was Luka when you needed him.  
  
He was at home. She knew this because she'd checked the ER's schedule as she checked it every week. Saturday. He'd be visiting his old ladies this evening. Maybe he'd call in on his way if she asked him. Friends did that sort of thing, right? Good friends?  
  
She'd been aware of a change in him. He'd stopped avoiding her, stopped rigging his shifts. He sought her out. Told her about the grandmothers, invited her to dinner. She went. His calmness unnerved her, who was far from calm. She had to get past this.  
  
He'd told her that he loved her. And he did, of that she was sure. I can do this. I can be his friend. In the end it doesn't really matter what he feels for me, she told herself. I love him and here he still is. It's good enough. And, if they were loving at cross purposes, well, it was still loving and an unlooked for treasure for her.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"Spring cleaning. Some of us do it in the spring."  
  
"You never did it before in your life."  
  
"You don't think so?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Well, there's a first time for everything."  
  
"So they say. You made these yourself?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Really."  
  
"Really. Again with the not believing me!"  
  
"Of course I believe you."  
  
"No you don't."  
  
"No, no I do. I just didn't know you could sew."  
  
"That's not sewing."  
  
"No?"  
  
"No. Just straight seams is all."  
  
"Pass the other one. Your mother sews."  
  
"Yeah. That's real sewing. Tailoring. She made my dresses when I was little. She sometimes made them out of our bed sheets or curtains which was - interesting."  
  
This was different, she realised. She could talk about her mother without embarrassment, without the need to cover her shame with wise cracks.  
  
"My mother didn't sew. And she was a terrible cook."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Really"  
  
"Doesn't seem to have stunted your growth any."  
  
"My father cooks."  
  
"You never mentioned your mother before."  
  
"I was 14 when she died."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"Ovarian cancer. She was 42." Luka stepped down.  
  
"Is that why you wanted to be a doctor?"  
  
He laughed a little at that. "That's what you'd think, isn't it. No, I decided that when I was 10 years old. Actually my grandmother had me marked for the priesthood."  
  
"A priest? You?"  
  
"Younger son. Why are you laughing?"  
  
"I can't see it. No, no, actually I think I can, you know. The uniform would suit you."  
  
"Uniform?" he asked, his voice rising on a note of incredulity.  
  
"Yeah, the long black - dress --- thing - what is it - "  
  
"Soutane."  
  
"If you say so."  
  
"Dress thing." He repeated, levelly.  
  
"You knew what I meant, though."  
  
"Well, I think maybe the church had a lucky escape."  
  
"Nah, you'd have been good. I think you'd be good at whatever you decided to do." There was a moment's silence. Abby wanted very much to kiss him then. "Coffee?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"And," she said, her voice raised over the sound of running water, "you'd have been good for business. The girls would have been queuing up for absolution."  
  
"So how are the grandmothers?  
  
"Persistent."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I keep getting invited to engagement parties."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"And weddings. It's like they're reminding me that stocks are running low."  
  
"You'd better grab one while you can. Sounds like they're going fast."  
  
"Actually no, there seems to be an endless supply of them."  
  
"Maybe" Abby laughed "they're coming on one side, going around back and coming back on again. Or are they shipping them out from the old country for you?"  
  
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"  
  
"I'd pay folding money to see it."  
  
"Well, as luck would have it I'm invited to a wedding next Saturday -"  
  
"No!"  
  
" - yes, I am. You could come along."  
  
"Will there be dancing?"  
  
"Certainly."  
  
"And I'll be expected to join in?"  
  
"Of course. And don't count on one of them dying this time to get you out of it." Abby's shock at this remark must have shown on her face.  
  
"Ah, come on, Abby, Rosa loved a joke."  
  
"Yeah, well, she was pretty fond of you."  
  
"Sure, you have a smart mouth now, but wait until they get you onto that dance floor. It'll be my turn to laugh then."  
  
"Bring it on, Kovac." 


	23. Chapter 23

PART XXII  
  
  
  
Abby thought it likely that after tonight she would never be able to move again. Every bone, muscle and ligament in her body ached. Well, a couple of hours of riotous dancing with a crowd of drunken, boisterous Croats would do that for you. She'd been twisted, turned, spun, lifted from her feet, almost thrown from one partner to the next, all the time trying to watch what the others were doing and laughing until her face hurt. The heat and the noise were immense, and she'd stared at herself appalled in the mirror of the ladies' room when she'd contrived to escape for a few minutes. Sweat had smeared her mascara into muddy smudges beneath her eyes and plastered her hair to her forehead. Eyes bright, face flushed it occurred to her that she looked like a woman in the aftermath of vigorous lovemaking.  
  
She hadn't danced with Luka other than in the "round robin" partner swapping dances. He'd said he'd be laughing and laughing he was.  
  
"Had enough yet?"  
  
"Not me, mister. Takes more than a souped up hoe down to finish me off."  
  
"Just tell me when you're ready to admit defeat."  
  
"Never."  
  
"We'll see." In the end she's been rather glad when, for the second time, she'd finished up on her backside. Her partner, who she'd gathered was either an accountant or a vet, helped her to her feet and she winced as she tried to straighten out. He was calling for Luka she realised, who came now and put an arm round her waist, steering her to a chair.  
  
"Where does it hurt?"  
  
"Everywhere. But then you know that, don't you?"  
  
"Am I gloating? Am I?"  
  
"Only with every fibre of your being."  
  
"Seriously, no damage done?"  
  
"Only to my dignity. I have a sore butt, weak and dizzy all over, my pulse is off the scale and I can't breath."  
  
"Yeah, well, pretty normal for the circumstances." He sat down beside her and she was grateful because the grandmothers were eying her speculatively.  
  
"I think they're sizing me up."  
  
"Probably," he said with a smile. She couldn't remember having seen him smile like this before. Ever. It suited him. He too had worked up a healthy glow from the dancing, his hair a little damp on his forehead. He looked younger than she had ever seen him and she wondered again about the person he'd been in his youth and during his marriage. The person that he still was, apparently, the person she wanted to know better, could have known better had she tried.  
  
One of Luka's old ladies presented them with a couple of glasses, one of which he took, but waved the other one away, saying something which made the old woman raise her eyebrows and ask a question, with a sidelong glance at Abby. Luka laughed and shook his head, shooing her away. A moment later she retuned with what looked like ginger ale and passed it to Abby with a knowing look.  
  
"What was that all about?"  
  
"I told her you have a condition which means that you can't drink."  
  
"Nicely put. And what did she say?"  
  
"Oh, nothing."  
  
"No, come on, she did." He merely shook his head, trying to suppress a smile. "Oh, my God, she thinks I'm pregnant!" He was grinning now. "What did you tell her?"  
  
"The truth of course!"  
  
"She didn't believe you, did she?"  
  
"I don't think so. Of course she wouldn't be smiling if you were a nice Croatian girl, but American women, well ."  
  
"No morals."  
  
"Exactly. Perhaps you should put you feet up" he giggled, and took her hand.  
  
"Funny. How long does this go on for?" You're holding my hand.  
  
"Usually until the last guest falls unconscious to the floor. But we can go any time you're ready. I think we've done our duty."  
  
"You can stay if you like. Just put me in a cab, I'll be fine." Don't let go of my hand  
  
"No, don't be silly, I want to make sure you get home and run a hot bath so you don't seize up." He looked away from her then in response to a call from one of the grandmothers. "Duty calls. Will you be OK alone for a minute?"  
  
"Sure. I expect they all know I'm expecting triplets by now, so I'll be excused further abuse on the dance floor." Luka kissed the back of her hand before releasing it and joining his old ladies. She watched as one of them rummaged in a vast handbag and produced half a dozen bottles of tablets which he proceeded to explain to her, writing notes on a paper napkin for her to look at later. Abby was glad now that she was already flushed because she could feel her face burning. The woman who had brought their drinks was looking at her and, when she caught Abby's eye, raised her glass to her and winked.  
  
  
  
He hadn't meant to take her hand, hadn't thought, but having taken it he couldn't very well let it go as though it were a mistake. She hadn't seemed to mind. He'd been conscious of the granddaughters watching them and had seen the glances exchanged when he'd kissed her hand. If his resolve to be simply a friend to her had seemed straightforward in theory in was in practice rather less so. He didn't understand her. Sometimes since Christmas the tone of her voice or a softness to her eyes gave him pause and he'd caught his breath on more than one occasion when he could have sworn that she was flirting with him. He stole a surreptitious glance at her now. She was talking to the priest and was clearly doing her best, but at that moment she looked up, searching the faces around her until she found him and caught his gaze. There was a moment when they looked at each other and he thought She knows. And, astonishingly, he knew too. He was rather glad he was sitting down. The moment passed. She smiled a little desperately and he stood up to make his way over to her, horrified to find, when he handed the notes he'd made back to the grandmother, that his hands were shaking.  
  
"Ready to go?"  
  
"I think so, yes. If that's OK."  
  
"Sure. Give me a minute."  
  
As Luka said his goodbyes Abby tried very hard to regain control of her breathing.  
  
What just happened?  
  
How out of practice was she at reading him? Hell, she'd never been in practice, and admitted, not for the first time, that she hadn't been paying attention at all before. She began to panic a little now, and actually considered leaving before he could get back.  
  
Don't be ridiculous  
  
"I called a cab" he said returning to her side, their coats in his arms. She couldn't look at him and so didn't see that he was looking anywhere but at her.  
  
They waited outside for the cab in silence, still not having looked at each other. The thought of sitting next to her on the journey home was a kind of exquisite torture to him. What to do, what to do. Well You could try speaking to her, Luka, that always helps. Except it didn't always, did it? Take her hand again? Put an arm around her shoulders maybe. But what if he'd been wrong?  
  
Jesus Christ.  
  
Just take his hand, Abby. But what if she'd been wrong? Look at me Luka. She felt sure that if she could see his face she'd know what he felt, see for certain what he'd worked out. Just look at me.  
  
"Did I tell you I'll be going home?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"July"  
  
"For good?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're going home to stay?" She was fighting to keep the panic from her voice, not sure that she was succeeding.  
  
"No, no, of course not. Four weeks."  
  
"It's a long time."  
  
"Not really. It's been a while. I have to - I need to spend some time, you know? There are some places I have to go."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Do you?" He was looking at her now very intently, a little anxious. Now that she had his full attention she wished he'd look away.  
  
"I think so."  
  
"It's just that --- I need to see it clearly, not as my memory has kept it. I don't think I can explain."  
  
"I understand. You going to be OK?"  
  
"I don't know," he said, candidly. "I think so." She laid a hand on his arm then and his eyes were fascinated by her fingers on is sleeve.  
  
"I think so too." She said. Luka opened his mouth to speak then but she beat him to it.  
  
"Here's our cab." 


	24. Chapter 24

Part XXIII  
  
The water was growing cold. Abby considered running in more hot, but she'd already done that twice. She ran her thumb over the tips of her fingers, pale and wrinkled, like wet seersucker; stood up, feeling a little dizzy and reached for her towel.  
  
The journey home had been silent until Abby said  
  
"I had fun tonight."  
  
"In spite of the dancing?"  
  
"Well, that was . an experience. You know we never went dancing . before I mean."  
  
"No"  
  
"We should have."  
  
"There are a lot of things we should have done. And some we shouldn't."  
  
Don't go there, Abby.  
  
"Yeah, well, it's a shame; you're not bad."  
  
"You should see me tango."  
  
"You cannot tango."  
  
"Sure I can."  
  
"No, you can't"  
  
"I can! I was taught by an expert.  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Bosnia."  
  
"The tango big in Bosnia?"  
  
"It probably is now if Eduardo's till there."  
  
"Well, you'll forgive my scepticism."  
  
"You're just jealous."  
  
"Really; of what?"  
  
"Can you tango?"  
  
"No."  
  
"So there you go then."  
  
"I'll believe it when I see it."  
  
"Don't hold your breath. I'm not sure I could recreate the right conditions."  
  
"Which are?"  
  
"Sub-zero temperatures, a noisy generator, wearing every item of clothing I own and boots with two pairs of socks."  
  
"Oh, elegant. Who did you dance with? Eduardo?"  
  
"No, not with Eduardo, with a very pretty Norwegian called Irma."  
  
"Irma."  
  
"Yeah. Tall, blonde, great legs."  
  
Abby didn't like the sound of Irma. "So, did you two . ?"  
  
"No. But we could have done."  
  
"Why didn't you?" Luka shrugged; "My heart wasn't in it."  
  
Where was your heart, Luka? Don't go there, Abby. "and it was too cold to even think about undressing. But" Luka continued, "She's used to the cold, so I expect she could have found a way."  
  
"How romantic."  
  
"Romantic? I have only two words to say to you on that score."  
  
"Which are?"  
  
"Howie Thomas."  
  
  
  
He'd stayed long enough to run her a bath and had called his goodbyes as she undressed in her room. She'd been simultaneously acutely disappointed and immensely relieved, and she suspected that he felt the same. The effort of maintaining light hearted banter on the journey home had probably been as exhausting for him as for her, and she was beginning to wish she'd capitalized on the tension between them. It had been dissipated for now. For now.  
  
Luka had walked home from Abby's place, thankful for the cool April night. He needed to clear his head, to marshall his thoughts. He knew that if he'd made a move toward her tonight she would not have rejected his advances, just as he had known on more than one occasion whilst she had stayed with him. Then he'd been in no doubt that it would have been wrong. He'd succumbed to her in the first instance in weakness and had done the same with Nicole. He felt himself blush with shame at the recollection. Nicole. What had he been thinking? Well, he hadn't of course. But she had slid into his bed in the night, needing him and it had felt so good to be needed that he hadn't turned her away. He wouldn't do the same again; and he wouldn't let Abby do it either. He owed her that much.  
  
He watched the fish in the aquarium, envying the beautiful silly creatures the simplicity of their mindless existence. He'd told her he was going away; it was as much news to him as it had been to her but he knew as son as he'd said it that it was what he had to do. He would have to hope that Kerry would permit so long an absence. His eye lit on his father's painting. He very much wanted to talk to someone.  
  
It took a long time before the 'phone was picked up; 12 rings . 13 .14 . finally there came an impatient "Da?"  
  
"Tata? Luka." 


	25. Chapter 25

PART XXIV  
  
"Four weeks? Four?"  
  
"Yes"  
  
"Here? With me?"  
  
"Well, there are some things I have to do, but yes, with you. Is that not good for you?"  
  
"You need to ask me?"  
  
"You don't sound . sure."  
  
"I'm sure. Of course I'm sure. When was I ever not sure about anything? But I'm surprised."  
  
"I have a lot to think about. I need a rest, Tata."  
  
"Is this about a woman?"  
  
"I knew you'd say that."  
  
"And I knew you wouldn't answer my question."  
  
"Well, partly."  
  
"Who is she?"  
  
"Abby"  
  
"The same one? You broke up! An age ago."  
  
"Things have changed. But I need a little . distance."  
  
"You think too much, boy."  
  
"Not always, Tata; sometimes not enough." His father was silent. "So, is it OK? Can I come to you for July?"  
  
"It will be as hot as hell; we'll stick to the coast. I'll tell Damir; see if he can get off the leash for a weekend."  
  
"That would be good."  
  
"And I'll have to move my canvases out of the second bedroom. And clean." He cursed softly then.  
  
"And move your mistress out."  
  
"Not so easy. They get so attached, you know - the screaming, the crying, the threats, the pleading . "  
  
"I know. Be gentle with her. Oh, and Tata?"  
  
"Yes, son?"  
  
"Loza. Plenty of it."  
  
"Ah, now that I can do."  
  
"Four weeks? What's he doing, taking a cruise?"  
  
"Going home."  
  
Carter paused before asking "Think he'll be back?"  
  
"I don't know. He says so. What?" she asked as Carter sighed.  
  
"I wish - "  
  
"What?"  
  
"That you'd get on with it, the both of you."  
  
"It?"  
  
"You know what I mean."  
  
"Yeah, it's that easy."  
  
"Isn't it? You want him; he wants you. Easy."  
  
"Little matter of history. And I've only been back from rehab 6 months. Pass the sugar."  
  
"Sober for 9 months. Sugar kills the flavour of coffee."  
  
"Look, it happens, it happens; it doesn't, it doesn't. And this hardly qualifies as coffee."  
  
"You've been spoilt. Maybe I should get you quarantined together."  
  
"Not funny, Carter."  
  
"It is. It's funny. You're driving me crazy with this."  
  
"What do you have to be crazy about?"  
  
"I hate to see waste."  
  
"You'll be telling me to eat my spinach next. When did you get to be a grown up?"  
  
"Took a while." Carter was serious now. "I had a look at a few other grown ups and decided to have at it myself. But at least one of my role models is now behaving like a teenager."  
  
"Me or him?"  
  
"You're a grown up?"  
  
"You're so funny today, Carter. Not. He may be a grown up but he's not like us. I don't think I - or you - have any idea what the last ten years have done to him. Sometimes he seems --- used up, you know? I don't know how often he can come out fighting."  
  
"Depends what he's fighting for, I guess."  
  
"I don't know if he wants to fight any more. It's different for him."  
  
"What is?"  
  
"Being with someone. It means something else to him. I don't know if I have it to offer."  
  
"But you want to?"  
  
Abby was silent for a while. "Yes."  
  
"Well, put an ad in the paper or something. Or I will."  
  
"Jesus, John Carter MD, advice to the lovelorn. Shoot me now."  
  
  
  
"Four weeks? It's a long time."  
  
"I know, Kerry, that's why I'm giving you plenty of notice."  
  
"But four weeks leave, Luka, and at the worst time of the year for cover. We need our attendings here."  
  
"You have Carter now. Please, Kerry, this is important to me." She regarded him levelly for a moment.  
  
"OK, Luka. But between now and then if I need cover for anyone, anytime, you're it."  
  
"Absolutely" he replied, with the smallest of smiles.  
  
"Four weeks? In July?"  
  
"Yes. So I'm going to be looking to the rest of you to be flexible with regard to cover."  
  
"But July! Could he have picked a worse time to go?"  
  
"I've made my decision, Pratt, and I've told you what I expect from the rest of you. You have a problem with that?"  
  
"Hell, yes, I was figuring on taking some time myself."  
  
"And you can. You can take it in June or in August."  
  
"Or - "  
  
"Or else, Pratt. Anyone else have a problem with this? Gallant?"  
  
"No, Ma'am."  
  
"Dr Lewis."  
  
"No. First come first served."  
  
"Good. I'll speak to Chen and Carter later. Now, a cursory glance at the board will tell you that we have work to do."  
  
"Then Kovac should be here doing it." muttered Pratt as he followed Susan.  
  
"He will be. Which is more than I can say for you if you keep this up, mister!" Kerry called after him.  
  
"That boy is his own worst enemy" observed Haleh, watching him go.  
  
"Not while I'm alive," Kerry replied. 


	26. Chapter 26

The day soared hot and cloudless out of the morning haze, which still hung over the water. The little beach was empty but for Luka who stood as the waves sucked the sand from beneath his feet, the familiar momentary threat to his balance making him smile a little.  
  
So, you're up, are you? He was looking well; better than the last time he'd visited in Zagreb. Then his son's eyes had rarely met his and had been full of something unknowable, something Ivica had seen there before. When Luka had come to him after his release from the camp he felt he could have walked past him in the street and not known him. Painfully thin, his chest rattling with infection, unhealed wounds on his body. Not since her death had Ivica wished so fervently that his wife were there, to hold her boy and sooth him when he woke from sleep in an agony of grief and rage. There had been no talking to him then. He'd brought him here to his wife's parents' house near Vodice, by the sea and watched helplessly as a kind of inertia had settled on him. His body healed but his spirit continued to languish in the grip of a terrible malaise. Ivica began to think it would have been better if his boy had died.  
  
He'd been the love of his mother's life. A beautiful baby, pretty child and graceful, handsome youth, Ivica would often find Elena gazing at their son incredulously, as though not quite able to believe he was theirs. And when she lay dying in hospital, caught by the stealth of the disease they'd found too late, it was Luka's eyes she'd sought at the very last. For a long time Luka's older brother had given him a wide berth after that, but Luka's quiet persistence, astonishing in one so young, had drawn Damir in again. And after Vukovar, when it seemed that Luka wanted nothing more than to walk into the sea, it had been Damir who had brought his wife and baby daughter here and had kept him tied to this world, however strong a pull he felt toward the next.  
  
He hadn't been at all surprised when Luka had walked into Vodice to call his father in Zagreb. He would be leaving. He didn't know where yet. No, he didn't think he'd be back.  
  
And shortly after that he'd hugged Damir and Tatjana and their baby, taken what few belongings he had and, with money given to him by his father and brother, had simply walked out of their lives.  
  
Now, as he watched him looking out across the Adriatic he wondered whether things were different this time. He'd been too tired to talk when he'd arrived two days ago, and he'd slept the sleep of the righteous almost all the time since. No matter. They had time. They had four weeks together. This time they would talk.  
  
Luka had expected the memories to be overwhelming here. They weren't. There was nothing except the familiar sight and scent of the sea. He had missed the sea. The early morning water was cold about his feet and ankles. He realised suddenly that he was hungry and turned to look at the house overlooking the beach. His father was looking back at him, and he made his way in to breakfast.  
  
"So, what do you say we take the boat down the coast tonight; eat some dinner, get a little drunk, you and me. Find ourselves a couple of girls."  
  
"You can have the girls, Tata. But the dinner and the drinks sound good." Luka watched as his father rolled another cigarette, his fingers ingrained with paint and nicotine. "They'll kill you , you know."  
  
"Do you know, there are people every year who are killed by frozen toilet waste falling from planes? They go to the gym, they run, they jog, they eat no fat and don't drink or - " here he paused to run his tongue lightly along the edge of the cigarette paper before rolling it neatly around the tobacco " - use these. And then one day, as they're, I don't know, jogging, cycling back from the gym, BLAM! They are hit by a block of s**t and p*ss dropped on them by total strangers who have been drinking and smoking their whole lives. I'll take my chances."  
  
"And live forever I should think." Luka finished his coffee.  
  
"Or at least die in my bed."  
  
"Someone else's bed probably."  
  
"Not you?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You keep to your own bed these days?"  
  
"Tata ."  
  
"No, no, I don't want to pry. You mentioned your woman again over the telephone and - "  
  
"She's not my woman."  
  
"No? Why not?"  
  
"We broke up."  
  
"And?"  
  
"And she was with someone else."  
  
"But not any more."  
  
"No. I - I think that maybe we could --- make something of it if we tried again."  
  
"Then try again."  
  
"I don't know. It's not quite that simple. She has --- problems."  
  
"Help her with them."  
  
Luka shook his head. "Not something I can help with." His father raised his eyebrows expectantly. "She --- she drinks."  
  
"So do I" observed Ivica, quietly.  
  
"No. She's an alcoholic."  
  
"You didn't tell me that when you were with her before."  
  
"I didn't know. She didn't tell me. And she wasn't drinking then."  
  
"She is now?"  
  
"No. I mean she did, for a while, but she's been in treatment."  
  
"Why does she drink?"  
  
Luka shrugged. "Her family --- well, her mother is Bipolar."  
  
"I don't know what that means."  
  
"You remember Emilia - I don't remember her other name - who was married to the piano teacher?"  
  
"God, yes. Is that what it is?"  
  
"Yes. Her father left when she was little. I don't think she ever really was a little kid, you know? And she needs ---"  
  
"I hope you aren't trying to be her father, Luka."  
  
"No, no that's just it; it's what I don't want to do; what she doesn't want anyone to do, and yet -"  
  
"And yet she does. I don't want to sound harsh, son, but she sounds like a lot to deal with."  
  
"Well so am I."  
  
His father leaned across the table and laid his hand over Luka's. "You're a Kovac. You're supposed to be a lot to deal with." Luka laughed then.  
  
"The thing is she's supposed to stay sober for a year - at least a year - before she starts up anything --- romantic."  
  
"Or what?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"What happens if she gets laid before the year's up? She burst into flames or something?"  
  
"Tata!"  
  
"No, no, tell me. Can you kiss her? Hold her hand? What's romantic?"  
  
"She needs to be clear about why she's doing things before she does them, alright?"  
  
"Well, as long as you understand it. You want to have her back?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Yes you do. Listen. When you met Danijella you knew didn't you? You were how old?"  
  
"17."  
  
"17. And you knew. And there went your grandmother's plans for a priest in the family, thank God. So, you know how that feels."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Is it there now, that recognising what you want?" Luka didn't answer for a while. "Son?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"So. Progress. And what about her?"  
  
"I think so."  
  
"But you don't know for sure." After a heartbeat Luka almost laughed aloud, because he was able to say with complete certainty "Yes."  
  
Ivica looked at his son's shining eyes and asked "So, when's the year up?" 


	27. Chapter 27

"Man, you need a shave."  
  
"And it's good to see you, too."  
  
Damir scanned his brother's face.  
  
"Where's Tata?"  
  
"Gone into Vodice. He means to cook for us tonight."  
  
"So the fatted calf is not yet slaughtered?"  
  
"Not yet. Besides, I don't think I qualify as a prodigal any more."  
  
"You don't need to. Tata would borrow a prodigal if it meant a party. He'll probably come back with one from town."  
  
"How long can you stay?"  
  
"Until Monday. Unlike you and Tata I can't be spared for weeks on end."  
  
"I don't understand how you're always so busy but the law still moves so slowly."  
  
"It's one of the central paradoxes of life. If you understood it you wouldn't need the lawyers"  
  
"You want some coffee?"  
  
"I'd rather have a beer. You got any?"  
  
"That's a trick question, right?"  
  
  
  
"What is it about this time, Luka?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"The visit. You never drop by for the sake of it." Damir's eyes were on the horizon. He was unable to keep the slight edge from his voice.  
  
"Drop by? From Chicago?"  
  
"From anywhere." Luka was silent. "So tell me. I mean last time you'd lost it and killed some guy. Tata drops everything at Christmas .'We have to be there for Luka.' And now I get another summons."  
  
"A summons."  
  
"Yes, a summons. What else would you call it? I couldn't say no."  
  
"You wanted to?"  
  
"I - I'd like the choice, Luka."  
  
"Take it up with Tata." came the irritable response.  
  
"Why yes, that would work. Why ever didn't I think of that?"  
  
"Oh, stop it Damir. If you don't want to be here don't be here."  
  
It was always like this whenever they met. Damir had tried hard all his life not to blame his brother for his looks, his height, for his mother's adoration. It seemed that Luka had attracted disaster as irresistibly as he had attracted affection and admiring glances. His loss of Danijella and the children and then of his freedom had been a kind of perverse crowning glory. He remembered thinking that nothing now could touch Luka, that praise and blame would be equally irrelevant, that he would be freed from the constraints and expectations of lesser mortals. Who could criticize a man - so young a man at that - who had endured so much? And in the end he'd been relieved when Luka had left them. Their father had mourned as though his younger son were dead. And, though Damir and Tatijana had given him three grandchildren the absence of Jasna and Marko was almost palpable. His own children would grow up, get into scrapes, cost money, cause worry. Jasna and Marko were the perfect grandchildren who would never grow up, never answer back, swear, smoke. Jasna would never dye her hair green or wear her skirt too short or fall for the wrong boy; Marko would never crash the car, pierce his nose, get a girl into trouble. And Danijella would be forever 24 years old, whilst Tatijana watched her own face lose its bloom, her figure capitulate to the unkindnesses of time and childbearing. Damir might go far in his legal career, might always be there, but he knew that Tata's thoughts strayed often to his wounded cub, so far away, unreachable.  
  
And Luka? Taller than Damir, better looking than Damir, with an unforced charm not vouchsafed to him; Luka who lived in the land of dreams, his brother the doctor, beside whom Damir had always found himself wanting. Luka who was speaking to him.  
  
"What?"  
  
"The children. How are they?"  
  
"Oh, growing. Anna - she started her periods a couple of months ago." He blushed a little then. "She's only 11, Luka, it can't be right."  
  
"Right?" Luka answered on a laugh.  
  
"It's too soon."  
  
"It's not. You do know that it's a sign of good health, good nutrition."  
  
Damir shook his head, sadly. "It's too soon."  
  
"You sound like Grandma."  
  
"Well, maybe so. It's how I feel. Magdalena's nearly as tall as Anna already. She has Tata's height like you."  
  
"And Josip?"  
  
"Still looks like me, poor boy. He has his mother's temper though."  
  
"That'll be interesting in a few years. You know, don't you, that when women live together their courses fall into step."  
  
"So?"  
  
"Think about it; three pre-menstrual women and you in the same house. Josip will be your only ally. You're going to need him."  
  
"Well, thanks for this, Luka, I can't tell you how much better I feel for knowing that."  
  
Luka thrust long fingers into the sand, raking it back and then flattening it, leaving a vague imprint of his hand. The dry sand fell in on itself and the imprint was gone. He glanced up at Damir whose eyes were still trained on the horizon. "I envy you." Luka's voice was very quiet. "Sometimes," he continued, "I'd give anything to be cross with them, worried for them."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Jasna would have been 16 this year. Old enough to be married."  
  
"I know."  
  
"I'm - going to Vukovar. Before I leave." Damir looked at him then.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because."  
  
"Because? Because what?"  
  
"I have to be sure that I can."  
  
"Can what?"  
  
"Go there. Come away again. Before, at the end, I was not really there at all. I don't think I ever left."  
  
"Why now?"  
  
"It's time, wouldn't you say?"  
  
"That's not all though."  
  
"No. If I can do this I can ." he struggled for the words.  
  
"Move on? Don't say move on."  
  
"No. If I can leave Vukovar I can get myself back. And then I can give myself again."  
  
"This is about a woman then."  
  
"Not really. I mean, yes, it's what got me here, but even if that doesn't happen . the thing is I have to be free of it, Damir. I'm not. It hurts too much to let them go. Or at least I think so."  
  
"I don't know what you mean."  
  
"I don't know how to explain it. Perhaps I haven't been honest."  
  
"With who?"  
  
"Me. Perhaps I just tell myself it hurts too much because I don't want to find out that it actually doesn't. Because then it really is . over. And then I have to deal with my life again."  
  
"I understand."  
  
"Do you?" Luka looked at him intently. "Really?"  
  
"Yes. Will you go alone?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"When?"  
  
"I think maybe right before I leave."  
  
"Is that a good idea?"  
  
"You think not?"  
  
"Well, you might need time . "  
  
"But that's the point; if I need time to get over it . I'm not over it."  
  
Damir smiled then. "You should have been a lawyer. Or a theologian. You know, when we were growing up I tried my hardest not to like you. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now."  
  
"You're still trying?"  
  
"I'm your brother" Damir shrugged, "it's my job." He allowed himself to smile then. "Get me another beer, shrimp."  
  
Luka opened his eyes and winced at the sunlight glaring from the whitewashed walls. As he moved the arm thrown across him tightened and its owner murmured something which made Luka raise his eyebrows. You don't mean that he thought. Out loud he said "Damir. Damir, let me go."  
  
"Stay, sweetheart."  
  
"Damir, get off me. Whoever you think I am, I'm not. And I need to pee." Useless. He prised the arm from around himself and all but fell out of bed. He didn't remember how much Loza they'd drunk but the scale of his headache suggested that it had been altogether too much. He made his way into the kitchen in search of coffee. His father was sitting, feet on the kitchen table, his back to the door and without turning round he raised his hand.  
  
"Looking for these?" Paracetamol.  
  
"You think of everything, Tata."  
  
Someone has to. My son the doctor. Ha. How's your brother?"  
  
"Amorous. Sleeping but amorous. I made my excuses and left."  
  
"Very wise."  
  
"I thought so." Luka managed to open the door.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
"For a swim."  
  
"Well, be careful. I think maybe you're not sober."  
  
"I think maybe you're right. What's the time?"  
  
"5.30."  
  
"a.m.?"  
  
"Yes, of course"  
  
"Mother of God, I've had three hours sleep."  
  
"You're a doctor. You should be used to it."  
  
"Lack of sleep maybe, but I'm out of practice with the Loza."  
  
"I'm 64. Look at me." He extended his hand. Steady. Luka didn't think he could say as much.  
  
It was very quiet beneath the waves. Quiet and clear and soothing. He had loved to do this with his friends as a boy. In and out of the water all day, bodies toasted golden brown by the sun, skin smoothed by the sand. Now he relished the silence, forcing himself to stay down until he thought his lungs must burst, not wanting to break the spell. But you can't stay down here forever Not and live. You've been down here too long. The rush of air and water as he broke the surface was shocking. But once up the sun still shone, the sand was still white and the sky was so blue he could have cried. You've been down there too long. 


	28. Chapter 28

PART XXVII  
  
"Damir. Damir, wake up. It's past noon."  
  
"Leave me alone, Tata."  
  
"Come on, boy. Here's coffee and bread and cheese. Eat something. Luka's been up for eight hours."  
  
"Luka would."  
  
"You drove him away." Damir's eyes were open now.  
  
"What? He's gone?"  
  
"No, no, out of bed."  
  
"I did not."  
  
"You made . advances to him." Damir sighed and sat up. "So," said Ivica, "You have a headache too?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"How did I father two such pitiful specimens as this?"  
  
"Two?"  
  
"Luka had painkillers for breakfast. You want a beer now?"  
  
"Tata, don't." Ivica laughed. "Move over." He settled himself at Damir's side and took out his tobacco.  
  
"Do you have to?"  
  
"My house, boy, my house."  
  
"Give me the coffee." He took a sip of the coffee and cradled the cup against his chest, letting the thick black liquid clear the foul taste of the night's excesses from his mouth. Ivica smoked in silence before saying abruptly  
  
"Next year I'm going to move down here for good."  
  
"What?"  
  
"When I retire."  
  
"You'll leave Zagreb?"  
  
"I've had enough of the city. I can paint in peace here."  
  
"Since when did you hanker after peace?"  
  
"Since I lived through a war."  
  
"Well, we all did that. You know what I mean. I thought you liked the city - you have all your mates there."  
  
"I can make new friends. Look, there's a town, a bar, a market, the sea, a boat and room to paint. It's all I need."  
  
"You say that now."  
  
"What are you getting so pissy about?" Damir was silent for a while.  
  
"I'll miss you. Mother gone, then Luka, now you; l feel like . an orphan."  
  
"Don't be so dramatic. Don't you want the cheese? Give it to me. Anyway, you could come with me."  
  
"Tata, my work, the kids' schools, I can't."  
  
"I know that. How did we end up here, do you think?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"I brought the two of you up after Mama died. I did my best -"  
  
"Tata -"  
  
"No, no, hear me out. I think I did a bloody good job. A lawyer and a doctor. I'm proud of you. Luka . well, Luka we lost at Vukovar, didn't we? I don't know if we'll ever have him back."  
  
"Literally?"  
  
"Literally, figuratively, every which way. But you . look at you. You're a good husband, a good father, a good son and a good lawyer. You're a good man."  
  
"And boring."  
  
"Sometimes" said Ivica candidly. "But then I bore myself now and then." He yawned hugely as though to illustrate the point.  
  
"Luka doesn't bore you though, does he?"  
  
"He would if he were here."  
  
Sure  
  
"I was thinking," Ivica continued, lighting another cigarette. "He says he's going to Vukovar."  
  
Here it comes  
  
"I know."  
  
"He shouldn't be alone."  
  
"It's what he wants."  
  
"He needn't know."  
  
"What? You're not suggesting I follow him?"  
  
"He wouldn't be comfortable if he knew."  
  
"I can't. My work -"  
  
"Is an excuse. He's your brother."  
  
"And he's your son! You do it!"  
  
"I don't -"  
  
"You must see how impossible this is."  
  
Ivica ran a hand through his hair.  
  
"I know. It's just that . "  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're a father, Damir; You understand. I worry, I still worry."  
  
"I know, Tata. But I don't think we can do this. And Luka might be right to want to be alone." An uncomfortable silence settled between them.  
  
"I wasn't there when they were buried." Ivica said suddenly. "No-one was there with him then."  
  
"No-one could have been, Tata."  
  
"I wasn't there to see them buried," his father said again.  
  
"I understand. I do."  
  
"I've been since, you know."  
  
"No. I didn't know."  
  
"I put up a headstone. Cost me a fucking fortune. What kind of person makes money out of headstones?"  
  
"In Vukovar? A wealthy one by now" said Damir, sadly. "Does he know?" Ivica shook his head. "Why didn't you tell him?"  
  
"I don't know. It didn't seem right. I . didn't think he'd ever go back. I'm afraid for him, Damir." He looked at his son then and Damir was astonished to see tears in his eyes.  
  
"He'll be alright, Tata," he said, gently. "He's strong. Like you."  
  
"He's stronger than me. Still I'm afraid."  
  
"What . do you think about this woman in Chicago?"  
  
"I don't know what to think. Last time he was here .. It was like he was losing any ground he'd gained. The man he killed. that was a long time coming I think. But I thought the idea of her got him through that. He went back . had something to go back to."  
  
"It's the same woman? I thought it finished?"  
  
"It did. Give me your saucer." Ivica put out his cigarette. "He says she drinks."  
  
"Drinks? As in ."  
  
"As in Viktor who used to work in the Post Office and drowned when he passed out at the side of the river."  
  
"Shit."  
  
"Yes. She's not drinking now."  
  
"But they aren't together?"  
  
"Yet." Damir considered this for a while.  
  
"Well, if he's decided she's worth it I suppose we must believe him."  
  
"What if she hurts him?" There was a note of panic in Ivica's voice. "I'm afraid for him. I wouldn't want him to know it. He says he loves her, wants to try again with her and I told him to see it through. But what if I'm wrong?"  
  
"He'll be OK. Tata, really I think he will."  
  
"Will he?" Damir had never seen his father like this, so desperate for reassurance. He felt a surge of pity and another of pride that he was the one entrusted with this face of his father.  
  
"Yes. He will. I know it." Ivica nodded  
  
"You know you're right, boy; sometimes you're a tight arsed, pompous, boring little shit."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"But I love you, you know."  
  
"I know." They were silent for a moment.  
  
"So, you ready for that beer yet?"  
  
"Absolutely not."  
  
"Eh, you're no son of mine." 


	29. Chapter 29

PART XXVIII  
  
They travelled up to Zagreb together, sweltering on the train, uncommunicative and prickly. He was aware of Ivica watching him nervously and wished he'd come alone. They'd been into Vodice for the festival of Our Lady Of Carmel and what should have been a carefree and light hearted day had been weighed down with the unspoken awareness of the journey they were to undertake the following day. Luka had his suspicions that his father had tried to talk Damir into going with him to Vukovar and had been aware too of his brother's silent resentment. The fact was he didn't want anyone with him there, whether to witness his pain or the lack thereof. And now he must spend a week in Zagreb in his father's chaotic apartment, must visit Damir's family and be polite to the old family friends he knew his father would insist came to see him, his son, the doctor.  
  
And then . what? Only now did he stop to wonder whether the whole trip home hadn't been a mistake. If nothing else he had become aware of the monumental unchangeability of his father, of Damir. And at the same time he felt that he had himself changed beyond all recognition. The thought of standing over the graves in the cemetary in Vukovar and feeling nothing threw him into a panic he found hard to contain, a panic which now made his heart beat uncomfortably fast and brought lines of anxiety to his brow. He was aware, from the corner of his eye as he stared from the window at the farmhouses and orchards, that his father was rolling another of his innumerable cigarettes.  
  
"Do one for me."  
  
"Sure?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"Have this one." Ivica leaned forward and lit the cigarette and paused before saying "They say the weather will break soon. Thunderstorms over Zagreb."  
  
"Well, I can't say I'm sorry. This is a nightmare."  
  
"It's the same in Chicago."  
  
"How do you know?"  
  
"I check in the papers. I like to know what kind of weather you're having."  
  
"You're kidding."  
  
"No. You're surprised?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Well, anyway, your Abby is suffering too. Have you called her?" Ivica already knew the answer.  
  
"No."  
  
"You should. Maybe she's waiting to hear from you."  
  
"I sent a postcard from Vodice."  
  
Ivica snorted with derision. "Well, I've never met her but if she's a woman worth the name that's not going to do it."  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Get her waiting at the airport when you get back."  
  
Luka fought down his irritation. "How do you know that -"  
  
"Oh, Luka, stop it! You're not getting any younger, neither is she and I don't suppose she'll wait forever. You're not such a great catch that you can afford to string her along." Ivica had to suppress a smile as he said this. Wherever they went women looked at his son and he had no doubt at all that they'd regard him as a catch worth having. He didn't know about this woman in Chicago of course, and though Luka had seemed sure of her at the beginning of his stay Ivica was aware that the long absence may have weakened his resolve.  
  
"Risk it, boy or give it up altogether, but stop torturing yourself like this. It's not necessary. That's her job."  
  
Ivica's apartment smelt of dead flowers. The offending items drooped in filthy brown water on the piano which had been his wife's but which no-one now could play. Luka stepped around stacked canvases in the second bedroom and dropped his bags on the bed before returning to the living room.  
  
"You said you'd clear the second bedroom."  
  
"I did!"  
  
"I can hardly get to the bed."  
  
"Oh, here. I meant in Vodice. I didn't know you'd be coming here, did I?" Luka picked up the vase of flowers and in the kitchen searched unsuccessfully for a dustbin liner into which he could empty them.  
  
"When did you last clean in here Tata?"  
  
"Don't start."  
  
"I'm not, I'm just saying - "  
  
"Well don't." Ivica had flung open the windows to catch the cool breeze. "The woman from downstairs comes in once a week but I told her not to bother before I went down to Vodice."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because," said Ivica as though Luka were stupid, "I don't want her in here when I'm away. I'd have to give her a key and then she'd . get ideas."  
  
"Ideas? Are you and she - "  
  
"Eh, now and then. But she's very dull and not at all pretty."  
  
You're not that pretty, you're not that special  
  
I'm pretty enough in the dark, though, aren't I?  
  
"That's not very . honourable."  
  
"Neither is she, boy. Come on, we have to go shopping. I have no food in the house. You can buy me a drink and tonight we'll go round to Damir's and Tatijana will cook us dinner."  
  
"I she expecting us?"  
  
"No. But she will be."  
  
"Will be?"  
  
"When I 'phone to tell her we're coming."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Ivica lay on his back in the middle of the cluttered living room whilst six year old Josip sat on his chest and attempted to beat out his brains with an inflatable hammer. Anna had blushed furiously when Luka said hello and kissed her and had spoken not another word to him all evening. She had her mother's blond prettiness, but 9 year old Magdalena was as dark as Luka and, he thought, as headstrong, arguing with her parents and showing flashes of wit not unlike Ivica's and far in advance of her years. The logistics of getting the children into bed had made Luka's head ache with only Anna seeming more than willing to escape their visitor. While Tatijana did battle with the remaining two Luka left his father and brother to their coffee and went into the kitchen to start on the dishes.  
  
"Leave it, Luka, Tatijana will see to it."  
  
"She will not." he replied.  
  
"America has made him soft." said Ivica.  
  
"I heard that." Luka replied from the kitchen.  
  
Engrossed in his task he was startled when he felt an arm curl around his waist.  
  
"You didn't have to do this."  
  
"Of course I did. You cooked."  
  
"You don't suppose you could get Damir trained, do you?"  
  
"No, actually, I don't." He paused. "I used to do it . before." Tatijana nodded.  
  
"So, Damir tells me you're going up to Vukovar."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"When will you go?"  
  
"Saturday, I thought."  
  
"You driving?"  
  
"No. There's a train at 7.30 in the morning."  
  
"You checked it out?"  
  
"Didn't need to. Tata knows the timetables off by heart."  
  
"You've heard about his plans to move down to the coast next year."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"What do you think, Luka?"  
  
"What do I think? I don't know. It's what he wants."  
  
"But so far away from the children . there'll be no-one left here soon."  
  
"Thing change, Tatijana."  
  
"I know, but . " She was silent for a moment, drying plates and stacking them. "Damir says that you have . that there might be . someone for you in Chicago."  
  
"There might be. I don't know."  
  
"If there's a chance Luka you should take it. You know it's what Danijella would have wanted for you."  
  
"I know." He stopped and turned to her then. "It's why I have to go to Vukovar. To make it real, you know? I don't think it's ever been real, like we're just separated. But I'm afraid."  
  
"Of?"  
  
"What if I don't feel as I should?"  
  
"How should you feel?"  
  
"I don't know. That's my problem." He was frowning a little, like a schoolboy puzzling over his arithmetic.  
  
"You feel what you feel, my dear. It's been a long time."  
  
"I know. But what if I don't feel . enough?"  
  
"That's not possible. And you need, what is it the Americans say, closure."  
  
"I want closure, not severance."  
  
"You've already worked out that you need to go there. Just do it, Luka. Put yourself out of your misery. It will be all right."  
  
"You think so? You think it's the right thing to do?"  
  
"I do."  
  
"They don't." he said, nodding in the direction of the living room.  
  
"Eh, two Croation men; what do they know?" She winked at him then and the sheer incongruity of the gesture made him smile. "We've missed you, Luka." She continued, softly. "Damir misses you."  
  
"Damir doesn't seem to even like me very much."  
  
"He loves you. And he hates you. You just left. I remember Vodice. He was in agony for you. We all were. And you just left us. Like another death. We were grieving for them too, Luka."  
  
"I know. I couldn't stand your grief and mine too."  
  
"I understand. He loves you, he does. He just needs you to love him back. He's a good man."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And so are you."  
  
"I don't know about that."  
  
"You are. But your father --- he's past hope." Luka laughed then and drew her into his embrace. She looked up at him and smiled. "Don't let him catch you doing this or Cain and Able will be nothing to it." 


	30. chapter 30

It had taken him time to find the place and now he frowned a little, puzzled.  
  
Danijela, aged 25 years Also Jasna, Aged 5 years and Marko, aged 2 years Beloved wife and children of Luka Kovac. November 1991  
  
Who had done this? Tata. He didn't know how he knew. The brilliant midday sunshine threw harsh shadows across the cemetery and it seemed even more bleak than it had in the snow, birdsong curiously out of place. He wanted to tell the birds to stop.  
  
He glanced around. So many graves, most of them untended. But not theirs. Someone had kept the grass and weeds away. Who had his father paid to do this? Not that it mattered. He'd seen other graveyards since, Muslim graveyards in Bosnia, poorly enclosed, poorly maintained, an irritating necessity. So many dead.  
  
Luka noted that there was an empty vase on the grave. He hadn't brought flowers, hadn't seen the point, but now he wished he had. He stooped to pick up the vase and made his way to the flower stall by the gates. The flower seller filled the vase with water, all the time conducting a rather one sided conversation with a companion at the back of the stall, while Luka picked out the flowers. There were no carnations which had been her favourite, loving their sweet spicy smell, like cloves and sugar mixed together. No matter. She wouldn't be seeing or smelling these.  
  
"It's not much," he said aloud, having arranged the flowers carefully on the grave, "not enough, I know. But what can I do? I should have come before, but I couldn't . be here. You understand, don't you? And why I'm here now?"  
  
Luka closed his eyes and forced his mind downwards through the earth to what lay beneath. The death and dissolution of the human body held no mystery for him. Her body would be gone now, the body he had possessed, the body his hands had read like Braille. Her hands, busy in the kitchen, at her sewing, plaiting Jasna's hair, on his body, still now.  
  
Gone too the two little bodies whose sweet, boneless softness he had held as they slept, felt squirming as he tickled them, felt moving in that other body. The tiny pearl like teeth which had grinned as he played with them, smiled like sunshine when he returned home from work, were grinning now at nothing.  
  
Nothing. There was nothing there. And he was glad of it. You can go now, Luka, you can go. And he thought he would cry with the sudden beauty of the birdsong and wished that they would never stop.  
  
As he went through the gates he called to the man with whom the flower seller had been speaking earlier.  
  
"Come on, Damir, let's go and get a beer and something to eat"  
  
If it got any hotter Abby felt sure that all her major internal organs would cook. In the three weeks since Luka's departure the thermometer had crept steadily upwards. The ER had been for a time an air conditioned sanctuary, but the endless stream of heat exhaustion victims - the very young and the very old for the most part - and the near and actual drownings of people who had taken to the waters of the lake and overestimated their skills, had begun to tell on the nerves of everyone there. Crankiness had combined with a dread of the furnace like heat into which they knew they would have to walk at the end of their shifts to produce a uniquely sour atmosphere.  
  
Now she dreaded her days off. Her apartment had no A-C and the constant hum of the three fans she kept running at all times did nothing to sweeten her temper, especially as all they did was circulate hot air. Even now, at seven in the morning the heat was unbearable.  
  
She'd been awake since six and now sat in the seat by the fire, a wet face cloth across her brow, inert, unable to move. But her mind was moving, had been moving all the time he'd been away. She'd seen him on his way at the airport, chattering too much while he remained largely silent. But it had not been the silence of a man afraid to speak, as she was afraid of the silences, she realised and she settled into quietude as they waited for his call.  
  
"What about the fish?"  
  
"My neighbour's taking care of that."  
  
"I'd have done it." She took in his rather dubious expression. "Maybe not. But, look, you'll send me a post card this time?"  
  
"If you like."  
  
"I like." He was looking at her levelly and seemed about to say something when his flight was called.  
  
"There goes you, then." For a moment they stood, wavering and then he took a step forward and caught her in a hug. On an impulse she wound her arms around his waist and clung on, fighting tears. Kiss me.  
  
"I'll miss you." She said, her voice very small, muffled against him. Please kiss me  
  
Take care of yourself" he said, releasing her. Then he turned and was gone. She wanted to call him, make him turn around, promise he'd come back. She didn't.  
  
She'd said she'd miss him but hadn't been prepared for how much. She realised she'd got into the habit of looking forward to seeing him at the hospital; if they didn't get out together at least once a week, to eat, to the theatre or the movies, she felt uneasy. Was this some sort of inverted flirtation - with no hints of more to come? She simply didn't know what was going on any more and had resolved on more than one occasion to simply ask him. But her nerve had failed her as soon as she set eyes on him and she took refuge in the 12 month rule; except she knew that was bullshit. She was already in a relationship with him; didn't feel they'd ever really broken up, just stopped sleeping together. For a moment, at the wedding celebration, she thought she had seen clearly what his feelings were, but she'd been seized by a crisis of confidence almost immediately. Carter's knowing glances had made her want to slap him and more than once she'd bitten back harsh words about his role in her split from Luka. It wasn't fair, she knew, she'd done that all by herself and now, without Luka there to give her hope she began to wonder whether the fracture were not irreparable.  
  
So, she went to her meetings, all the while telling herself that this was about her, not Luka, not Carter, not Maggie, but her, and that whatever happened she was gaining in strength and wisdom and learning to know herself. She went to her therapist, called her sponsor, called on all the resources available to her. Three weeks along the line Luka's absence no longer occupied her every waking moment. But there were the sleeping moments to consider. And that was another matter altogether. It was nearly a year since she'd had sex and being around him had been like having a banquet laid out before a starving man and then telling him he couldn't touch it. Her dreams were becoming worrisome on that score and she blushed sometimes remembering them.  
  
Now, as she sat unmoving, eyes closed, she tried to call up his image, and felt tears threaten when she could not.  
  
"How do you feel?" Damir was almost afraid to ask.  
  
"Sad." Damir nodded. "But - "  
  
"But?"  
  
"Free. I thought I'd feel worse about . about the children. But I've realised that I've been thinking about them all wrong."  
  
"How so?"  
  
"I've thought, you know, this year Jasna would be 10, 12, 15, this year Marko would get his first bicycle. I've looked at them growing up, becoming adults. But it's not the job of children to grow up. It's their job to be children. They were happy children. I should be glad of that."  
  
"And can you?"  
  
"I can try. They were what they were. They weren't there to make me happy. That's my job."  
  
"You used to be good at it. You could be again."  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
"They were happy in you too, Luka. Danijela, the children. You did it once, you can do it again."  
  
"I'm not the same person."  
  
"Sure you are. I think maybe you just . lost sight of yourself for a while, lost who you are. But you're still there. I can see it."  
  
"You can?"  
  
"Yes. And so can Tata, and Tatijana."  
  
"You're a lucky man to have her, Damir."  
  
"I know. She told me . she told me which train you were taking this morning. Oh, very casually, you know, but her expectations were pretty clear. I think if I hadn't come here today she'd have found a way to come herself."  
  
"I don't deserve you."  
  
"No, you don't."  
  
"In Chicago I have a nice apartment, a nice car, a job that pays well. I would have traded it all for what you have."  
  
"Would have?"  
  
"It's yours because of you. I have to find something for myself now."  
  
"Something or someone?"  
  
"I don't know . "  
  
Damir was shaken by a rare gust of temper.  
  
"Oh, Luka, fuck it, don't do this. This woman, she's what you want, you know that much."  
  
"And I had her once."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So that's why it's not so simple. It's not so easy to forget."  
  
"Not to forget, no. But to forgive. You just said it yourself, Luka, you're a free man, not the man who was with her before. If you can move on from here - " and he gestured with a wide sweep of his arm, "- you can move on from whatever happened with her before."  
  
"But can she?"  
  
"Well, I don't know, do I? You'd have to ask her that. But the thing is it's your call. And if you won't even ask . well, I wash my hands of you."  
  
"I hope they never make you a judge."  
  
Damir laughed then, mollified. "Look, all I'm saying is that you have to learn to see yourself again, stop being the man who lost his family, see who you really are now for good or evil. And you have to look at this woman -"  
  
"Abby."  
  
"- yes, Abby, look at her, really look, and decide whether she's worth the effort it's going to take. And then act on it. Stop waiting for things to happen. Make them happen."  
  
"Why do you think I'm here?" Luka was feeling a little browbeaten now.  
  
"For yourself. And that's as it should be. You think you have your freedom, but it's no good unless you do something with it." He shrugged. "Eh, perhaps I'm just talking rubbish here."  
  
"No," said Luka, carefully, "You're talking perfect sense." He laughed. "You always do. What would I do without you?"  
  
"You've managed so far." The edge in his voice didn't escape Luka.  
  
"No, no I haven't. You made me what I am, you, Mama, Tata. And really, you were always with me, you know?"  
  
"No. I didn't know."  
  
"Neither did I, 'til now. I've let go of Danijela, Jasna, Marko, they're gone, my family. But I've found you again, my first family. You're a good man, Damir."  
  
"So everyone keeps telling me."  
  
"And a good brother. And I love you, more than you know."  
  
Damir scanned his brother's face for a moment. "I know. Come on," he continued, briskly, "If we hurry we can be back in Zagreb for a late supper and then the drinks are on you."  
  
"All of them?"  
  
"Look, I'm a lawyer - what did you think, you'd get free advice?"  
  
"Well, in that case - while I still can - I need to make a 'phone call."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Abby was debating whether she had the energy to get up from her chair and get some breakfast. The effort it would require seemed enormous. You need to eat Abby. She didn't move. When the 'phone rang she ignored it and her machine cut in.  
  
"This is Abby, leave a message."  
  
"Abby, it' s Luka."  
  
She shot across the room with an alacrity which would have shocked her if she'd thought about it and snatched up the 'phone.  
  
"Luka, I'm here." A pause.  
  
"Did I wake you?"  
  
"Not exactly." She tried hard to sound casual, but her heart was cracking her ribs and the receiver shook in her hand. "I'm sitting here sort of braising in the heat."  
  
"It's bad?"  
  
"Unbearable. "  
  
"It's been the same here. Look, I was just calling to say I'll be back on Wednesday."  
  
"What time?"  
  
"!0.00 o'clock your time."  
  
"Shall I meet you?" She could have bitten her tongue off.  
  
"You're not working?"  
  
"No." Not any more  
  
"Oh, well then, yes, please" He fell silent and she suddenly felt uneasy.  
  
"Luka . where are you?"  
  
A beat. "Vukovar."  
  
Oh, God.  
  
"It's OK," he continued, "there's no-one here." 


	31. Chapter 31

"Luka. Luka, wake up" Receiving no response Damir kicked his brother a little harder than was absolutely necessary.  
  
"Son of a bitch!"  
  
"We're ten minutes out of Zagreb. Wake yourself up."  
  
"I think you just did that." Luka grumbled.  
  
"God, I'm hungry."  
  
"Is Tatijana expecting to feed us?"  
  
"Sure. I said I'd get you back tonight."  
  
"Oh, you had a plan, did you?"  
  
"Well --- no, I didn't.but it was what she wanted. What is that?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"The ring. I noticed it before."  
  
"It belonged to a friend of mine. She died."  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry."  
  
"No, no, she was an old lady. Her time. She came from somewhere near Grandpa's farm she said."  
  
"What name?"  
  
"Petrovic. Rosa Petrovic."  
  
Damir shrugged. "Petrovic. Common as dogs. Why did she leave you the ring?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Perhaps she thought you'd find a use for it." Damir said, slyly, as the train pulled into the station.  
  
"Come on, let's get out of here."  
  
"Chicken."  
  
"Not listening."  
  
Damir squawked as he followed Luka down the platform.  
  
"Still not listening. And you're making a spectacle of yourself."  
  
Squawk, squawk, squawk.  
  
  
  
Damir had stopped only when Luka abruptly caught him in a headlock in the street outside the station. The evening was cool and there was a soothing breeze blowing from the river.  
  
"I've been thinking about maybe moving south with Tata when he goes."  
  
"Where? Vodice?"  
  
"No. Dubrovnik, Sibenik. Lawyers, we're like doctors. No-one wants us but everybody needs us eventually."  
  
"You really want to go?"  
  
"He's getting old, Luka. I want to be near him, want the kids to be near him. And someone's going to have to deal with all those paternity suits. Anyway, it's where we grew up, it feels more like home to me than Zagreb ever will no matter long I live here."  
  
"What does Tatijana think about it?" No answer. "You haven't told her, have you?"  
  
"Well, obviously we'll have to talk about it. It's not something which can be decided just by one of us."  
  
"Yes it is."  
  
"What?"  
  
"She'll decide."  
  
"No."  
  
"Sure she will. Henpecked, that's you." And he began to squawk, lengthening his stride so that Damir must break into a canter to keep up and then into a run as Luka laughed and sprinted away from him.  
  
Ivica sat by the open window and waited, blowing clouds of cigarette smoke out into the night air. It was late, and there had been no word from Damir. What if he hadn't brought him back, what then? Of course he'd bring him back, he could rely on Damir. Besides, Tatijana would have his balls on a platter if he didn't. He leaned forward, hearing footsteps in the street below. Not Luka. He tossed the cigarette end out into the dark, watching as it described a glowing orange arc through the air. His boy had been sure that he needed to do this, had slipped away in the early morning taking nothing with him. Ivica had told himself that this was proof that he'd be back tonight; but it might just as easily mean that he'd never again have any use for his things.  
  
Ivica Kovac was not a man given to tears, but that morning he had sat on the bed in the spare room, picked up the shirt discarded there and, holding it to his face, sobbed for his son and for all the years lost to them. He was not much given to prayer either, usually invoking the deity only to curse Him. But he murmured "Please, God, make this right for him, for all of us, make it right."  
  
Now he lit another cigarette and poured himself a shot of Loza. Soon, he'd be home soon.  
  
He must have dozed off. He was jolted awake by a voice calling up to him from the street.  
  
"Hey! Old man! You have to let me in, the street door is locked!"  
  
"And what time do you call this to be coming in? You're lucky I wasn't in bed."  
  
"Stop grumbling and open the door. I'm tired and I'm getting cold down here."  
  
"Patience is a virtue, boy."  
  
"How would you know?"  
  
Ivica stood stiffly and made for the door.  
  
"Silly old fool," he admonished himself, wiping tears from his eyes. "Crying like a woman." He laughed then, and tried hard to settle his expression into that of a man well and truly pissed off at being kept up. But when he opened the street door he found himself caught in Luka's embrace.  
  
"Oh, fuck it, boy, I thought you weren't coming back." he said and this time he let himself cry.  
  
  
  
Upstairs Luka watched and waited as his father cried.  
  
"I'm sorry, Tata."  
  
"Don't be sorry, don't be sad. There's been enough sadness, don't invite any more through the door. Pour me a drink."  
  
"The thing is - the thing is I've been trying so hard to keep them safe - in here," and he laid a hand on his forehead. "But it can't be done. They're gone. I've been so afraid to let them go. I can't live my life afraid."  
  
"We're all afraid. Parents, they're more afraid than anyone. The worst thing that can happen to a father has happened to you. They would have wanted you dead too. I'm proud that you didn't finish the bastards' work for them." Ivica held out his glass again. "And this time you have one. What will you do?"  
  
"Do?"  
  
"When you go back." Luka didn't answer. "Luka - this woman - Abby - what will you do?"  
  
"I don't know. "  
  
"You don't know."  
  
"Tata, I can't think about that tonight, really, not tonight."  
  
"No. But before you leave you have to decide. "  
  
"I know. The thing is - whatever happens it'll be all right now, you know? I'll live."  
  
"It's a man I raised, by God it is. Fill these glasses."  
  
"You drink too much."  
  
"I drink too much, I smoke too much and if you ask Mrs Gavrilic downstairs there are other things I do too much. What the hell. I could fall under a bus tomorrow."  
  
"Or get hit by frozen toilet waste."  
  
"Just so. The piss and shit can hit any of us any time, hit all of us during the war."  
  
"A real sh*t storm."  
  
Ivica looked warily at his son before giving way to a great shout of laughter.  
  
"Here's to you, Luka Kovac, here's to you! I'm going to drink to you, boy and I'll do it every day of my life 'til they put me in the ground!"  
  
And Luka knew that he would. 


	32. Chapter 32

It is a truth universally acknowledged that staring fixedly at an airport arrivals board will not make the awaited flight arrive any sooner. Abby was beginning to think that it might actually have the opposite effect, and went to increase Starbucks' already unwieldy profit margins.  
  
Any more of this stuff and I'll be bouncing off the walls like Wile E. Coyote off the walls of a canyon  
  
She had a bad feeling about this. She'd taken a day's leave only to be roped into providing cover for the previous night's shift. The coffee, whilst scary, was at least preferable to the alternative of falling asleep on the spot. She'd been aware of Carter's amusement and knew that her edginess must have been plain.  
  
"You OK?"  
  
"Oh, I'm just peachy."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Why?"  
  
"You seem a little --- brittle."  
  
"PMS."  
  
"Ouch. Poor Luka."  
  
"What?"  
  
"He's back tomorrow, right?"  
  
"Which has nothing at all to do with anything."  
  
"Of course not."  
  
"You know one of these days that smirk is going to get smacked right off your face."  
  
"And you're just the gal to do it."  
  
"There's a line forming right behind me."  
  
"Relax. It'll be OK."  
  
"I'm relaxed. What? I am!"  
  
"If you bump into anything you'll shatter."  
  
"I'm tired."  
  
"And nervous."  
  
"No."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Would you just let it drop?"  
  
"How was he when he called?"  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Who. I may be stupid Abby but I'm not stupid."  
  
"He was in Vukovar."  
  
"Wow."  
  
"Yeah. Wow."  
  
"He OK?"  
  
Abby shrugged. "I guess. We didn't talk about it."  
  
No change there, then. Carter bit back the wise crack which sprang to his lips, but Abby's face told him she knew he'd thought it. "He just sounded --- exhausted."  
  
"So what's the plan?"  
  
"His plane gets in at ten. I should have time to get home and shower - "  
  
"Not that plan."  
  
She sighed. "Come outside and talk. I need a cigarette."  
  
The impossible humidity seemed to have reached saturation point and even breathing was an effort.  
  
"It has to rain soon," she said, more of a plea than a prediction.  
  
"You haven't answered my question."  
  
"I'm going to talk to him."  
  
"Really? Cards on the table talk to him?"  
  
"It has to be, doesn't it? I mean I can't - I don't want to drag on like this, just wondering. You know I've seen Luka dealing with kids, kids whose parents are hurt or dead. Tells them everything because he believes it's better that they know the truth, good or bad. It's better than not knowing. He's right, but the thing is I used to feel better not knowing, not dealing."  
  
"But not now?"  
  
"No. Making progress, huh?"  
  
"So, good or bad. What if it's bad?"  
  
"Well that's it. It'll be OK. I'll live. I mean, whatever he says I have to do this for me, right?"  
  
"OK, where is she? Show me your hands. Can you bend your little finger?"  
  
"Where's who?"  
  
"The real Abby Lockhart. Because you're obviously some sort of alien replicant."  
  
"Yeah, well it feels like it sometimes. I feel like I've spent the last 30 years chained to an idiot, pulling me every which way. Didn't matter what I did or where I went because the idiot was always right along with me. The thing is I wanted to cut the chain, you know? Just seemed impossible. If I drank I didn't feel the chain and the idiot seemed like pretty good company."  
  
"Not now?"  
  
"You don't have to cut it. I just had to talk to the idiot and explain that I didn't want her along anymore. And I had to stop buying her drinks."  
  
"And how did she take it?"  
  
"Surprisingly well. I mean, she hangs around a bit, but she doesn't bug me like she used to. I have a life. I'm too busy to worry about her any more."  
  
"You could always send her to stay with your Mom."  
  
"Yeah, friends forever. How about you?"  
  
"I have a whole chain gang of idiots. I'll have to pick them off one by one."  
  
"You getting there?"  
  
"Getting there. Therapy's helping. I didn't think it would. "  
  
"Why?"  
  
"The embarrassment factor mostly. But it's embarrassment or life with the chain gang, right?"  
  
"I'm glad for you."  
  
They looked at each other for a long moment. "I hope it goes - the way you want it to."  
  
"I know. Thanks, Carter."  
  
"Look, why don't you get off at six. I'll cover for you and you won't have to rush. I mean, he'll have been flying all night and you haven't slept. You'll make a lovely couple. This way you might be able to grab an hour's sleep and one of you can look presentable."  
  
"I don't think an hour's sleep is going to do it. What if I don't wake up?"  
  
"I'll call you."  
  
"You're a good friend, Carter."  
  
"Nah, I just don't want the two of you scaring the horses."  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
The noise of the rain on the roof of the cab was deafening. Abby was caught in the opposing pull of physical exhaustion and acute mental awareness. Eighteen months ago the idiot would have suggested that she take a drink. She seemed to be silent for now.  
  
It was a short dash from the cab to the doors but not short enough to prevent her from getting soaked. She tried to repair the damage in the ladies' room but finished up with fragments of paper towel in her hair. Her attempts to use the hand drier left her hair impossibly dry and fluffy and crackling with static. She would of course choose today to wear a skirt and its hem was now sodden.  
  
The mascara had been a bad idea too and was now smeared in muddy patches beneath her eyes. She scrubbed it off, leaving her eyes pink. Great, now he'd think she'd been crying.  
  
Give it up, Abby. He's seen you looking worse. Though not much.  
  
She was half an hour early. Ridiculous. Planes are never early, and now the rain might actually make it late. Buy a magazine, stop looking at the damned board. She stared unseeing at the pages of advice, exhortations to diet, exercise, exfoliate, moisturise, condition, what to do in bed, what not to do in bed, how to get your man, how to keep him. Maybe I should read that one.  
  
She'd been trying hard not to think too much about what she'd do, say, feel when she saw him again  
  
Go with the flow, Abby. You don't need a script.  
  
She'd spoken the truth when she'd told Carter that she sometimes didn't recognise herself. There was a time, not long since, that she'd have been playing this scenario in her head, her every expectation a disappointment waiting to happen, her every disappointment a confirmation that she was right to expect the worst, wrong to want more. But not today. What, after all was the worst that could happen? That he'd tell her that he'd had time to think, realised that friendship was as much as he wanted from her? She'd rather he told her he wanted nothing at all to do with her; the friendship thing was killing her. She had to tell him that she wanted more or she wanted nothing, because in that instant she realised it was true.  
  
Abby Lockhart had decided what she wanted, and she'd decided to ask for it. She needed a cigarette.  
  
She shifted on the uncomfortable plastic stool and lit up, her last guilty pleasure. The area designated for the purpose was crowded and sordid and she thought again that she should quit.  
  
One thing at a time, Abby, one thing at a time.  
  
Minutes later she was staring up at the arrivals board again. 


	33. Chapter 33

"I know plenty of people who can help us find a house. Josip, leave your sister alone. You have your own drink, stop it."  
  
The restaurant was crowded, noisy and smoky. More accustomed these days to smoke free eateries in Chicago Luka realised he had missed this.  
  
"Well, your idea of suitable might not be mine. Josip!"  
  
Tatijana snatched the fork with which Josip was about to stab Magdalena out of his hand and returned it to the table with a bang. Luka looked across at Anna and raised his eyebrows, smiling. She blushed furiously and examined her fingernails. He'd asked Tatijana if he'd done something to upset the girl who had still not spoken a word to him.  
  
"She has a terrible crush on you," Tatijana had said. "Don't tell your father; he'd make her life miserable with teasing if he knew."  
  
Luka looked across at Ivica who was looking back at him, a tiny smile teasing the corners of his mouth. As if he wouldn't know. Luka frowned a little and shook his head almost imperceptibly. Ivica shrugged and said "And not in the middle of nowhere. Where will Anna find her admirers?"  
  
"Nowhere in Dubrovnik is in the middle of nowhere" said Damir, testily.  
  
"Can we have a garden, Tata?"  
  
"We'll see."  
  
"And a horse?"  
  
"No! What would we do with a horse?"  
  
"A dog then?"  
  
"We'll see."  
  
"Your uncle could find you a horse" observed Ivica.  
  
"Really? Uncle Luka, get me a horse!"  
  
"Your grandfather's teasing."  
  
"I am not!" He leaned in toward Anna conspiratorially. "Once, when he was - how old, Luka? Nineteen?"  
  
"Nineteen."  
  
"Yes, nineteen, your uncle Luka stole a police horse right here in Zagreb."  
  
"With the policeman on it?" asked Josip, enchanted.  
  
"No, of course not," said Ivica. "He was taking a - he'd gone to the bathroom."  
  
Josip regarded his uncle with new respect. "Where did you keep it?"  
  
"I didn't keep it. I left it tethered by the river so it would be found."  
  
Josip's new found respect evaporated instantly. "You should have kept it. The policeman could have got a new one."  
  
"We were living in your grandfather's apartment. I couldn't keep it."  
  
"Sharing a room with him was bad enough" put in Damir, nodding at Luka, "never mind a horse. Then, maybe the horse would have been better."  
  
"Still," said Taijana, "a garden would be nice."  
  
"Why did you do it?" All eyes turned to Anna, who had spoken for the first time. "Why did you take the horse?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"He was in drink" said Ivica.  
  
"Well, yes. But the horse looked --- lonely."  
  
"For God's sake!" snorted Damir.  
  
"It did. I rode it through the city for about an hour. We had a very interesting conversation."  
  
"Oh, please!"  
  
"What about?" asked Anna.  
  
"What about? About your Aunt Danijela, mostly. I thought --- I thought perhaps I'd like to marry her. The horse thought it was a very good idea. And as it turned out it was right."  
  
"Was she pretty?"  
  
"Horses aren't pretty!" threw in Magdalena who had plaited the prongs of her fork into her hair.  
  
"Yes. Almost as pretty as you."  
  
"I want a cat, actually." said Josip. "And a hamster."  
  
"Together? What if the cat eats the hamster?" posed Ivica.  
  
"We'll see, " said Damir.  
  
"Would you like some wine?" Luka asked Anna.  
  
"Luka!" scolded Tatijana.  
  
"Just a little, with water. Young ladies are allowed a little wine."  
  
"Mama?"  
  
"A tiny drop. Enough to colour the water and that's it."  
  
Luka mixed the water and the wine and handed it to Anna.  
  
"Make a toast." He told her. Anna pondered for a moment and then said  
  
"To our family." They raised their glasses and Luka smiled across at Anna.  
  
"The boys in Dubrovnik had better look out" he said and winked at her. There was that blush again.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
He lay awake for a long time that night. Leaving them tomorrow was going to be harder than he'd expected; he'd begun to entertain the possibility of returning for good. He turned Rosa's wedding ring on his finger; no. There was something he had to know first. If her answer was no he knew he would not fall to pieces. He had a life to live and knew that he wanted her in it, but he knew too that he'd have to tell her that he wanted more than her friendship or he wanted nothing. She loved him, he believed that; but with the love he wanted, and now felt he deserved? What if she decided on nothing? He'd know soon enough, no need to meet trouble half way.  
  
It seemed to him now that he'd spent a long time unable to live in the present; his past had been too painful for him to draw any comfort from it and had also taught him that the future was an illusion as likely to disintegrate as to materialise. His years with Danijela he had spent seeing his children's futures, had lived for that; to no avail.  
  
So. No past; no future he could trust; and the present too had somehow eluded him. And at the very point at which he'd thought he could do it he also discerned that the woman he'd thought was with him had absented herself. His fault of course.  
  
And you're married to a ghost  
  
She was wrong. It was him that was the ghost. He wouldn't do it again.  
  
Tell her what you want. Take the consequences. Be a man. He smiled in the dark. He was turning into his father.  
  
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""  
  
"Business class! You have money to burn."  
  
"No, Tata, I have long legs."  
  
"So do I."  
  
"You don't fly!"  
  
Ivica opened his mouth to argue but Luka cut him off. "Believe me, it's worth it."  
  
"My son the jet setter."  
  
"Stop squabbling" sighed Tatijana. Ivica looked suitably cowed.  
  
"I hate this." He muttered.  
  
"We all hate it, Tata."  
  
"And where's your brother?"  
  
"He'll be here."  
  
"Couldn't take a day off."  
  
"He's taken plenty of days off."  
  
"Well --- "  
  
"Leave him alone. Am I complaining? He'll be here."  
  
As though on cue Damir found them. He looked hot and uncomfortable in his suit, a little red in the face from rushing. He tried to smile at Luka and couldn't. Luka smiled for both of them.  
  
"I hate this," said Damir. He hadn't expected to feel so much anguish at Luka's departure. This was what his brother did to them. The love they had laid up, like wine, now uncorked and poured. Now he'd have to stop it up again and hope that it didn't go sour waiting for the next time. He hoped this time would be different, that they were seeing him off to something warm, something welcoming and thought his heart would break when he thought of more disappointment for Luka. He half hated the woman he knew was drawing him back, hoped she'd be careful of him, wasn't convinced that Luka would survive another defeat for all his apparent new found serenity. He hoped she was worth it.  
  
"I suppose" said Tatijana, slipping her hand into Luka's and leaning into him "that next time we see you we'll be down on the coast."  
  
"I guess."  
  
"And maybe next time --- not alone?"  
  
"Tatijana - "  
  
"No. I have a feeling about this. It will be all right."  
  
"We'll see."  
  
"That's my line" said Damir.  
  
"Of course, Anna will hate her" offered Ivica, helpfully.  
  
"No, she won't" Tatijana leaned in closer to Luka and whispered "Don't let this go , Luka. Take your chance, you deserve it. Do it for Danijela."  
  
"Your flight, that's your flight!" said Ivica, a note of panic in his voice which said "Don't go."  
  
"Just go," he said, "Just go, I hate this."  
  
Tatijana reached up and took his face in her hands, kissing him lightly on the mouth. Damir bridled and they both laughed.  
  
"Too easy, it's just too easy."  
  
"Take care of yourself" Luka said to Tatijana "and them." He hugged his brother and his father briefly.  
  
"Go you and do likewise."  
  
"Jesus Christ when women start quoting from the Bible it's time to find a bar."  
  
Luka turned and walked briskly away from them; and Ivica called after him  
  
"Tell me if she bursts into flames!" 


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34  
  
  
  
The apartment felt too big now. Ivica stood in the doorway of the spare room, saw that the bed had been stripped, the bedding folded neatly on the mattress. More like Damir than Luka. He tipped it into a heap on the floor and stretched himself out on the bed. He suddenly felt terribly old.  
  
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////////////////////////////////////////  
  
"So that's that then. Until next time."  
  
"Don't talk like that. You sound --- bitter."  
  
Damir opened his eyes wide and laughed. "Bitter? No, just realistic."  
  
"I think this time was different."  
  
"While he was here, yes. What about when he's over there? He seems to come unravelled over there."  
  
"Just trust him, Damir. He was so much more --- himself this time."  
  
"Maybe. Why do I let it get to me?"  
  
"Because he's your brother and you love him."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And he loves you."  
  
"I know."  
  
"And so do I."  
  
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////////  
  
Anna could hear her parents talking and knew who they were talking about without hearing their words, She said a prayer for uncle Luka who talked to lonely horses and had raised his glass to her.  
  
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////////////////////////////////  
  
"You're not that pretty, you're not that special."  
  
Luka had played that night over and over again like his own personal Zapruder footage, the foregone conclusion lending it a terrible clarity. If he'd stopped at any time, reached for her, turned aside wrath with kindness, seen past his anger, anything but that. He hadn't meant it, of course, but she'd worn him down over weeks and months, their last months together a war of attrition, until in the end he'd been to exhausted to fight any more.  
  
He'd regretted it bitterly, had tried to make amends. He'd told her he hadn't wanted to hurt her, but in truth he'd wanted exactly that, had at least wanted to know that he could. And though she said she wasn't hurt he knew better. He'd tried to understand the distance she kept between them everywhere but between the sheets. Now that he'd looked at his own fear he recognised hers all too well. Such efforts she'd made, such energy expended in holding him at bay, warding off the fear of the anticipated pain. Ironically, it hadn't worked; she'd been hurt anyway, and for what?  
  
And now? The fear would still be there he knew. Still, bravery lay not in the absence of fear but in its overcoming. He had no idea how brave she was. Looking out over the clouds he felt brave enough for both of them, but when it came to it? There was only one way to find out. He needed her to know how he felt and the rest would be up to her.  
  
"You tell me" he'd said. Well now she would have to. He was resigned to it being in her hands and the thought was strangely calming.  
  
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////  
  
Carter glanced at his watch.  
  
"Do you have somewhere to be?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Either you have an appointment or you're terribly fond of that watch." said Jing Mei, amused. He didn't answer.  
  
"Abby?"  
  
"She's meeting Luka's flight" he said without thinking. Damn.  
  
"At, oh, let me guess, 10.00 O'clock?" Again he didn't answer.  
  
"You OK?" The concern in her voice finally prompted a response.  
  
"I'm nervous for her."  
  
"What? They're ancient history."  
  
"History has a way of repeating itself."  
  
"You think so? For them?"  
  
"Maybe. It's what they both want."  
  
"What about more recent history?"  
  
"Oh no, not me Ma'am."  
  
"How do you know all this?"  
  
"She does still talk to me, you know."  
  
"About this?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
Jing Mei shook her head.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I don't know. Seems kinda weird."  
  
"Weird?"  
  
"Yeah. I mean that's one strange threesome you have going there."  
  
"Is that the kind of stuff they taught you at finishing school?"  
  
"I don't know what you mean."  
  
"For a nicely brought up young lady you have a very dirty mind."  
  
"You have no idea," she said and winking she turned to walk away from the admit desk.  
  
"What time are you off?" he called after her. She didn't answer. "Have dinner with me?"  
  
"I thought you'd never ask." she said over her shoulder. 


	35. Chapter 35

Part 35  
  
She looked to him as though she'd been crying, her eyes a little pink. Her hair was a dreadful mess. How tiny she was! He'd hugged her warmly, loving the feel of her in his arms, invoking every injunction to action issued by his father, Damir, Tatijana. They had all, in their way, said "Do something". The sight of her here strengthened his resolve., and he'd smiled down at her, seeing her own tentative smile in return. He wondered if this might work.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Welcome back". Abby was relieved to find that her voice still worked. He frowned a little then.  
  
"Have - have you been crying?"  
  
"My eyes. No, it was the rain." She wasn't about to tell him she'd put on mascara for the first time in weeks in order to meet him.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I had to - never mind. Well, you brought some nice weather back with you."  
  
"I'd think you might be glad of it from what you said on the 'phone. Zagreb was whipping up a very fine thunderstorm when I left." His accent was a great deal more pronounced than when she'd seen him last.  
  
"Impressive?"  
  
"Wagnerian."  
  
"How's your dad?"  
  
"Same as ever" he laughed.  
  
"You see your brother?"  
  
"I saw them all" he said, more quietly. Not here, Abby, not now.  
  
"Seems to have done you good."  
  
"Yeah, I think maybe it has. Would you like to get some coffee before we go?"  
  
"Probably not a good plan."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"You do not want to see me in caffeine overdrive. I've drunk enough coffee this morning to float a battle ship."  
  
"You and caffeine overdrive might be fun. You having trouble staying awake?"  
  
"I got pulled in to cover the night shift."  
  
"You should be at home sleeping!" he protested.  
  
"I said I'd be here."  
  
"Abby, you could have - "  
  
"Stood you up? That's what you think of my manners?"  
  
"No, but - "  
  
"I'm OK." Luka seemed doubtful and she sighed. "We should go" she added. "The queue for cabs was crazy when I got here."  
  
As they stood in line for a cab Abby stole a surreptitious glance at him. He didn't even look tired. Relaxed, tanned, taller than she remembered. She felt impossibly shy of him. There had been nothing guarded in the way he had greeted her, hugged her, smiled down at her. He was glad to see her. She wondered if this might work.  
  
"You got a tan" she said.  
  
"You didn't."  
  
"Well, no, I haven't been bumming around at the seaside for a month."  
  
"It was nice, the seaside. You get my postcard?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"I sent one."  
  
"Sure you did."  
  
I did! From Vodice."  
  
"Probably get here around Christmas. How many in front of us now?"  
  
"I don't know. Six maybe."  
  
"What do you want to do?"  
  
"When?"  
  
"Now."  
  
"I could use a shower and a shave and then I need something to eat."  
  
"Oh, Jesus."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I meant - I meant to return the favour."  
  
"What favour?"  
  
"The groceries."  
  
"Oh, no, no, there's no need -"  
  
"There is. I did think about it, really. Look, when we - you - get home I'll go to the store and then I can make lunch at your place."  
  
"It's not necessary."  
  
"Luka, please. Humour me."  
  
"I'm too tired to argue."  
  
"You don't look it."  
  
"A tan can hide a multitude of sins."  
  
"You should probably try and stay awake until tonight."  
  
"Well, if I have some company I might just manage it. If you keep talking."  
  
"You may regret that."  
  
"Bread, milk, fruit, cheese, olives, coffee, bread, milk, fruit, cheese, olives, coffee." She repeated her list like a mantra as she moved through the grocery store. "Beer." Beer? Why not. Tell yourself it's Coke you're buying . and get some Coke.  
  
The rain had let up just as they arrived at Luka's place and she very much wanted to make it back there before the heavens opened again. She would fix lunch, leave him to unpack, ask to see him the following night. "We need to talk". No. "I need to talk to you." No again. "I'd like to talk to you." Yes, that was better, that would do. And damn, here came the rain.  
  
The apartment seemed ridiculously big. He opened all the windows and headed upstairs to the bathroom. Shower, shave, clean teeth, clean clothes, home again. Downstairs he glanced through his mail, throwing most of it away. The rain was beginning to clatter against the windows and as he pulled them closed she made her entrance, a little breathless, laughing that she'd made it just in time. He took the groceries from her, thinking that after lunch he'd ask if he could see her the following night, ask if she could spare him some time to talk to her. Or perhaps he would wait. He was glad his father couldn't see him.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
"Hey! Stay awake!" Abby extended a foot and tapped it against his.  
  
"I am awake" he said, but his eyes remained closed.  
  
"I'll make coffee."  
  
"I'll do it. Don't worry, I'll make it weak." He hauled himself to his feet with what seemed like an enormous effort. "You working tonight?"  
  
"Tomorrow, seven to seven. And I'll take the coffee muddy."  
  
"Really? Since when?"  
  
"I dunno, just sort of developed a taste for it."  
  
"The age of miracles is not passed."  
  
"Yeah, well, it's amazing what you can get used to." She watched as he made the coffee, listening to the rain on the windows. She remembered being glad for her bed when she was a little girl and the rain would come down.  
  
"When I was little I used to love to hear the rain at night when I was safe in bed." Luka said, as though reading her thoughts.  
  
"Me too. I guess it's universal."  
  
"Actually, I still like it."  
  
"Well, now I think of the homeless guys sleeping in dumpsters. What?"  
  
"I'll never be able to listen to the rain at night again." He handed her her coffee.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"You should be."  
  
They sat in silence for a moment before she asked "So, how was it?"  
  
"How was what?" She raised her eyebrows in a look that told him he couldn't get away with playing dumb.  
  
"It was - - - therapeutic." Abby waited for more. He glanced at her and away. Still she waited.  
  
"There's something I want to say to you."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"You - - - came to me before you went into rehab and you said you were sorry. I need to say that to you now."  
  
Oh God.  
  
"You're sorry. For what?"  
  
"For before."  
  
"Before? Before when?"  
  
" When we were together. I - - - shouldn't have been with you - - - with anyone. I wasn't - - - fit."  
  
"Luka - "  
  
"No, let me talk. This time let me talk." Abby nodded.  
  
"I think I was never really here, you know? And I should have sent you away, but - - - the thing is, I want you to know that I tried. I did. But I think I'd forgotten how to be anything but - - - alone. Is this making sense?"  
  
"I think so."  
  
"I don't want you to think that I didn't want to be with you, be there for you. But I wasn't even there for me. And after that night - - -"  
  
"I know."  
  
"I wanted you to stay. And go. I should have sent you away."  
  
"You tried."  
  
"Not hard enough. I knew it was wrong. I was - poison. I should have put a stop to it. And I'm sorry. Forgive me?"  
  
"I already did." He didn't reply and Abby felt ready to scream.  
  
"And Vukovar?" she asked quietly. She expected him to hesitate, falter. He didn't.  
  
"Vukovar was sad. But they weren't there. A neat grave, a headstone, bones. They weren't there. But I was. I am, here. And it's OK, you know? I can't carry their corpses around with me. What they were - are - I still have. I don't have to think of what might have been. What was is good enough, and I should be thankful for it. It's pretty simple in the end."  
  
"It sounds it when you put it like that."  
  
"Well," he continued "the thing is, corpses are heavy., and it wears you out. And they stink., death stinks."  
  
"I kind of had the same thought about myself. I thought about my drinking, my needing other people to put things right for me like being chained to an idiot. I got rid of the idiot."  
  
"And how is it?"  
  
"Lonely, actually."  
  
"Yes. I know."  
  
"The thing is Luka, I'd - I'd like to have some time to talk to you about what's been going on with me. Not now, not today, you need to sleep. So do I if it comes to that."  
  
"About what's been going on with you?"  
  
"Stuff. I've been a busy girl this last year and there are some things I'm thinking differently about. I'd like to know - - - what you think."  
  
"You aren't planning on leaving Chicago, are you?"  
  
"God, no." It was a lie. She had thought about it, and lately she'd thought about it more. There was something she needed to know first; felt encouraged by the alarm in his voice. "I'd just like to talk to you."  
  
"Tomorrow?"  
  
"Sure. Come over to my place about eight. I'll cook."  
  
"Again?"  
  
"This wasn't cooking."  
  
"OK."  
  
"You look beat. I should go."  
  
"I don't think I'm going to make it through 'til tonight."  
  
"Well, give in gracefully. I'm going to try and get some sleep before my shift."  
  
They stood at the door, a little awkward. "It's good to have you back."  
  
"Good to be back."  
  
"You might want to wait until you've eaten dinner tomorrow before saying that."  
  
"No. It's good to be back." 


	36. Cgapter 36

"So, where do you want to eat?"  
  
"I get to choose?"  
  
"Sure. Anywhere you like."  
  
"Okay. I know exactly where I want to go."  
  
"Do we need a cab?"  
  
"No, we can walk."  
  
"Work up an appetite?"  
  
"Nothing wrong with my appetite, Carter."  
  
"Well, lay on."  
  
Companionable silence was something Carter had learned to relish. For too much of his life silences had been dangerous things, filled with guilt or misery or shame, with anger, hurt and resentment. He could be quiet with Deb; and every time he saw her he felt as though he were picking up a conversation interrupted only minutes before.  
  
"And how do you really feel about all this?"  
  
"This?"  
  
"Abby and Kovac."  
  
"Oh, that. I'm okay, I'm good."  
  
"Really?" Her smile was a little sly.  
  
"Sure. I mean, yeah, if I had the choice I guess I'd rather not watch. At close quarters, you know, but no, I'm okay."  
  
"Might not happen."  
  
"It better, or I'm going to have to shoot them both."  
  
"It's quite a transformation."  
  
"Of what?"  
  
"You. I mean, a year ago you'd have been happy to cut out his heart with a spoon. Pretty obvious you've never liked him."  
  
"I don't not like him."  
  
"Right."  
  
"No, well, yes, I won't deny that at one time the whole heart and spoon scenario would have been very appealing."  
  
"But?"  
  
"Well, you know, your perspective changes."  
  
"Abby's too by the sound of it."  
  
"Everybody's. Relativity and all."  
  
"Please tell me you're not going to quote Einstein at me."  
  
"No, it's a good analogy, actually. Things look one way when you're one place and then you move slightly and everything looks different. What was right looks wrong and - and - "  
  
"You don't have the first idea about relativity, do you?"  
  
"Of course I do. Rudimentary maybe but sound for all that. Well, me and Abby moved. In fact the only thing that pretty much stayed put was Kovac. Abby and me got out of alignment and it all got - "  
  
"Are you going to start on the Harmony of the Spheres next?"  
  
"You hum it and I'll play it."  
  
"You have an overdeveloped sense of metaphor, Carter."  
  
"I know. I can't help myself. Do you suppose I have latent literary talent?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Well, give it to me straight. The thing is I've been working my ass off. Meetings, therapy, more meetings, trying to understand. Trying to grow up I think."  
  
"Is it working?"  
  
"I don't know. What do you think?"  
  
"I think I'd need to study the subject more closely before I could offer an informed opinion."  
  
Carter felt his scalp prickle at that. Was she flirting with him in earnest, or was this just her usual teasing? He ploughed on.  
  
"I know that part of the whole thing is being able to forgive myself."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"For surviving Bobby. For Lucy. For not - dealing. I'm starting to really understand that sometimes you just have to let go."  
  
"I know." She said very quietly.  
  
"Oh, God, Deb, I'm sorry. I wasn't - "  
  
"It's okay, Carter. I don't think anyone understands what I let go better than you." They walked on in silence. Carter wondered if he should take her hand or lay an arm across her shoulders. In the end he did neither.  
  
"Do you like Kovac?" he asked suddenly.  
  
"Me? I don't know him well enough to say. He's always seemed like a decent man. But - - - "  
  
"What?"  
  
"It's sort of hard, knowing what happened to his family. Not that I know properly what did, except they died. Do you know what happened?"  
  
"Yes. Can I - can I tell you some other time? I mean, we're out on the town and I have to tell you, that story's a bit of a downer."  
  
"Sure. So, how's your mom?"  
  
"Oh, classy segue!"  
  
"No, I mean - I thought things were better."  
  
"They're less fraught. Is that better?"  
  
"I don't know. My parents and me, we're - polite."  
  
"Well, yes, our kind of people - we do polite very well."  
  
"Well, sometimes parents can be a terrible disappointment to their children."  
  
"Sing it, sister. How much further to this place?"  
  
"Here we are."  
  
"Here? Wow."  
  
"You said I could choose."  
  
  
  
"So, what'll you have?"  
  
"God, I can never choose in these places." Said Carter, staring at the menu.  
  
"Go for something at random."  
  
"No, you pick something and I'll have the same."  
  
"And you're paying, right?"  
  
"Absolutely. Anything you want."  
  
"Okay. I'll have a Big Mac, large fries and a large diet Coke."  
  
"Make it two."  
  
"And I'll want a Macflurry afterwards."  
  
"I know what this is. You think because I'm buying you dinner I'm going to make a move on you and you want to make sure you're up on the deal."  
  
"No, no, I'll pay next time."  
  
"Next time?" he asked after the smallest of pauses.  
  
"What, you don't want a next time?"  
  
"Are you - flirting with me?"  
  
"Oh God, Carter, listen to yourself. Of course I'm flirting with you."  
  
"Real flirting, not just - - - "  
  
"How far up your ass has your head been recently?"  
  
Carter shook his head. "Deb - "  
  
"Jing-Mei."  
  
"Not Deb? Not even for me?"  
  
She shook her head. "Time to get real, Carter. If it's Deb Chen you want you're a couple of years too late." He considered this for a while before asking  
  
"Do you mean all this?"  
  
"What do you want me to do, set it to music?" Another silence.  
  
"Jing-Mei, there's something I need you to know."  
  
"Oh?" Her voice was bright, but she wasn't smiling now.  
  
"The thing is, I - I really prefer Burger King." 


	37. Chapter 37

3.00 pm. He'd slept for 16 hours and still his limbs felt like lead. If it weren't for the fact that he was ravenously hungry he'd have been tempted to go back to sleep. It would at least pass the time until he made his way to Abby's place to hear the verdict, and he knew that was why he was going. Damn. He had meant to be the one to initiate this and here he was, pre-empted. He had no idea which way this would go. She'd been pleased to see him on his return, but then she was a friend, why would she not? He had done a lot of thinking whilst he was away, but then so had she evidently and he was certain that she'd come to a decision. The doubts which always dogged him where she was concerned returned with a vengeance. The thought of sitting patiently while she told him what his future was to be made him sick to his stomach. He felt as he had before exams. He'd always been fine once he'd seen the paper, but before that it had taken every ounce of his willpower not to turn tail and run. Well, if he ate something he might not feel so nauseous. He ate. He still felt nauseous.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Miss Lockhart."  
  
"Doctor Carter."  
  
"And how are you today?"  
  
"Good"  
  
"Really? How did it go?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Yesterday."  
  
Abby didn't answer.  
  
"Oh-ho! Last night, even?"  
  
"Nothing happened."  
  
"Nothing?"  
  
"Well, you know, we talked. He talked, mostly."  
  
"That has to be a first."  
  
"No, as it happens. I don't tell you everything, you know."  
  
Carter's expression changed from one of amusement to one of concern.  
  
"You OK?"  
  
"Yes. No. I'm seeing him tonight."  
  
"Ah. I figured you'd have it settled by now."  
  
"Well, see, he'd just spent 24 hours on a plane and I'd had no sleep. Not ideal Big Serious Talk conditions, you know?"  
  
"I guess not. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be flippant."  
  
"No, it's OK. I didn't mean to snap. Can we just not talk about it right now?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"You're looking kinda pleased with yourself."  
  
"I am?"  
  
"Like the cat that got the cream."  
  
"Well, not yet."  
  
"So come on. Spill it."  
  
"No. Don't want to jinx anything."  
  
"This is me, Carter. I'll find out."  
  
"So go find out."  
  
"Chen."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You had a date with Chen."  
  
"She told you."  
  
"No she didn't."  
  
"Yes she did."  
  
"No she didn't. She told Susan. I just overheard."  
  
"You eavesdropped."  
  
"She seemed kinda pleased with herself too."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Really. So how was it?"  
  
"Cool."  
  
"Cool?"  
  
"Well, you know, I didn't really know it was a date."  
  
"Sure you did"  
  
"Well, I didn't know if she knew."  
  
"You been taking classes in advanced obtuse?"  
  
"You're asking me that?"  
  
Abby was suddenly serious.  
  
"Scared?" Abby nodded. "It'll be OK" Carter said, quietly.  
  
"What if - "  
  
"It'll be OK"  
  
Abby looked him in the eye then, thankful to have him there. He reached out and pulled her against his shoulder.  
  
"It'll be OK."  
  
  
  
  
  
5.00pm . This was intolerable. He'd unpacked; pressed the clothes which Tatijana had insisted on washing before he left Zagreb; retrieved his spare keys from his neighbour; restocked the kitchen and sifted through four weeks' worth of mail. He should go for a walk by the shore. He walked, but a man can only walk so far. He drank espresso after espresso in a little café until the waitress started to cast anxious sidelong glances at him and his nerves were shredded and his heart pounding and he had never wanted a cigarette so much before in his life and damn his father. Perhaps he could call him. Ridiculous; Luka could imagine the reception he'd get. He walked some more.  
  
7.00 pm She'd be finishing work now; shopping maybe. This time tomorrow he'd know. He'd know. Jesus Christ.  
  
  
  
  
  
"God, Abby, what is it, what's happened?" Luka stared appalled at the tears running down her face when she opened the door to him.  
  
"What? Oh, no, onions; I'm chopping onions."  
  
"Shit, I thought - I don't know what I thought - your mother or something."  
  
"No, nothing so dramatic. Come on in." He followed her to the kitchen.  
  
"Here, let me do that."  
  
"It's OK."  
  
"Please."  
  
"What, so we can both cry?"  
  
"It's what friends are for. Give me the knife."  
  
"Suit yourself. You're early."  
  
"Nothing else to do, you know?"  
  
"Unpacked? Done your laundry?"  
  
"None to do. Tatijana did it all before I left Zagreb."  
  
"She obviously thinks you need looking after."  
  
"I know. I don't know how she thinks I manage the rest of the time."  
  
"What's it like?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Going home."  
  
"Strange. Easy to get pulled in again."  
  
"You thought about it?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And?"  
  
"It would please them."  
  
"But not you."  
  
Luka shrugged.  
  
"You could live in Zagreb?"  
  
"I don't know. My father is planning to move to the coast next year. He can paint, get drunk, seduce the local peasantry. He'd be in his element."  
  
"He sounds - - - "  
  
"Go on."  
  
"Well, colourful."  
  
"How diplomatic. He's that alright."  
  
"You have your accent back."  
  
"Do I?" He sounded rather pleased.  
  
"Yes. So they'd like it if you went back."  
  
"In theory."  
  
"Meaning - - - "  
  
"I don't know if it could work. We've lived such different lives since - - - the war. I don't know if I could stand it. Where do you want these?"  
  
"Give them to me. Here." Abby handed him a piece of kitchen paper. "Wipe your eyes."  
  
As he washed his hands she said "Carter's dating Chen."  
  
"I see" he said, carefully. "And how is that?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"For you. I mean - "  
  
"Oh, no, it's good. They're good for each other I think. He's - he - she's very - - - grounded. I think that's what he needs. Pass the chicken over."  
  
"What are we eating?" He knew he'd have difficulty swallowing a single mouthful.  
  
"Paprika chicken."  
  
"I haven't eaten that since - - - well, since the last time you cooked it for me."  
  
"Did you lose weight while you were away?"  
  
"I don't think so, why?"  
  
"You look like maybe you did. Just a little."  
  
"I don't know how. My father goes for quantity and Tatijana's cooking is, well, generous. And it was all washed down with lots of drink." He stopped, awkward. Smooth, Luka, very smooth.  
  
"It's OK, Luka. It's not a dirty word."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't be. Don't you miss it - Croatia?"  
  
"Sure. But places - - - they're what people make them, aren't they. Minnesota for you - "  
  
"My mom. I know."  
  
"Oil."  
  
"What?"  
  
"The oil is burning."  
  
"Shit."  
  
"Pour it away and start again."  
  
Abby turned off the heat under the pan and stood as though paralysed. "I'm not hungry."  
  
"Me neither."  
  
"You want a beer? I got some. It's OK."  
  
"Yes. Yes, I do. You want anything?"  
  
"Perrier. It's in the fridge."  
  
"Go and sit down." 


	38. Chapter 38

She sat by the fire, feeling as though she were waiting to see the dentist. He brought her drink and a cigarette which he lit for her and took his place on the other side of the fire and waited. The beer was too cold and did nothing to calm his nerves. She smoked the cigarette right down, lit another.  
  
"I should quit."  
  
"My father has strong views about cigarettes and frozen toilet waste."  
  
"What?"  
  
Luka shook his head. "Never mind. Another time." If there ever was another time. "So."  
  
"So. I need you to just listen to me and not interrupt. I haven't thought this out, it probably won't be clear, but don't stop me because I'm going to need the momentum to get me through. I'm not real good at this."  
  
"Whatever you want."  
  
" I - like I said, this has been some year for me. Busiest year of my life I think. I've never worked so hard, worked through so much stuff. Hard. I've had t o step out from behind all of the things I've used to put between me and - - - well, between me and my life. I daren't think about how much energy I've wasted fighting people off. When I wasn't doing that I was looking at next week, next year, never looking a where I am right now. I can't change the past and I can't shape the future, so there was me off the hook. It's bullshit. But it kinda works. And chop your life up into pieces, keep them apart, deal with your life in bleeding chunks. It does, it seems to work, but it's still - - - dismembered. Should I start again? I don't think this is making any sense."  
  
"Go on."  
  
"I did it with my - - - with relationships. You know that. I settled. All along, every time, I settled for second best. I was Richard's wife but never his friend. I was your - your lover, but we were never friends either. And I was Carter's friend, but I should never - - - well, you know. But see, I can't do both, they're like separate things that I can't join up. You I thought I could take care of, that would be easy, I knew all about that. But you didn't let me and then there I was, sleeping with you, waking up with you and I didn't have a damned clue what else I should be doing."  
  
"Abby - "  
  
"No. No. Don't. "  
  
She paused here, lit another cigarette. This was not going to end well.  
  
"The thing is, I'm an addict, Luka. Drink, failure, misery. Old friends, and they never let you down, they don't change, they're always there for you and they don't ask anything from you except that you keep them company. You tried, I know you did. Tried to get your hands back on the ropes, to make a change. I didn't understand any of it, I didn't understand you. That night, at Rosa's, I saw it then, saw what your life had been and what I'd done. And what I said about why I didn't tell you about the drinking, that was true, and it wasn't fair, because it wasn't really about you at all. It was just a chance to be someone else, someone who didn't drink.. You never looked at me and saw someone who drank, so I didn't drink. But it wasn't me. You were never really with me"  
  
"Abby - "  
  
"You promised! Shut up. When I saw that maybe you were starting to wake up, I was scared, because if you woke up you'd see it was me and then I'd have to BE me. I didn't want to be me, I've never wanted to be me. A drink's great for making you feel like someone you're not. Do you see?"  
  
"I see."  
  
"But now I feel like I have a choice. You know, you can grow out of friends. I think maybe I grew out of my old friends. You're a good friend Luka."  
  
Oh God. Oh no, no, no.  
  
"I've always thought, you know, if . if I could get away from mom, from home, if I could be married, if I could get a divorce, if I could be a doctor, if I could have you, or Carter, if I could take a drink, if I could leave the drink, then I'd be happy. I think maybe I've run out of ifs." She paused. "Can I get some more water?"  
  
"I'll get it." Luka actually wanted to walk out there and then because he had a terrible feeling that he knew where this was going. Instead he filled her glass and resumed his seat.  
  
"I don't want to - - - settle any more, I can't waste any more time on second best. You told me, the day after I showed up at your place, that you loved me. You said you'd love me whether I drank or not because it was up to you. I need to know what you meant by that because I think you're more than a friend to me, I want to be more than a friend to you, and I've thought lately maybe you want that too, because, well, friendship's a fine thing, but it's not what I want from you, not now, and it's killing me. And I think I could maybe try now if you'll - - - help me, I need you to help me, and we could help each other and I know I told you to shut up, but what I need, what I really need just right this minute is for you to say something because if you don't I think I'm just going to die."  
  
Was that it, was that what he'd been waiting for, dropped into a tangle of garbled words, tripped over and almost lost amongst everything else? He was staggered by her honesty, her bravery, and now, when he needed it most, his English deserted him. He started to speak, but she interrupted.  
  
"You have to speak English, Luka."  
  
"I'm sorry. I was wondering, while I was away - - - I was thinking, if you wanted, maybe we could - - - go out sometime." A silence.  
  
"You mean like a date?" He looked up at her now, catching her gaze for the first time, saw the understanding in her eyes.  
  
"That's sort of what I was thinking." Another silence as she digested this.  
  
"Tomorrow?"  
  
"Tomorrow works" he said.  
  
"I get off at seven."  
  
Neither of them moved.  
  
"Are you - - - hungry now?" she asked eventually.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Me too."  
  
  
  
  
  
Blue.  
  
The shirt was blue. Abby knew she didn't own a shirt that colour, but she knew a man who did and she knew too how it came to be on her bedroom floor.  
  
  
  
  
  
"Wash or dry?" he asked.  
  
"Dry".  
  
They'd eaten dinner in virtual silence, punch drunk. It seemed they'd made their declarations and didn't know what to do next. Luka knew what his father would advise, but he wasn't Ivica and felt as though he were treading on thin ice, that the whole thing might fall through beneath his feet at any moment.  
  
"I should get a dishwasher."  
  
"You appear to have one" he remarked, glancing down at her. It occurred to Abby then that it was true that happiness was where you looked for it. Standing with a dish cloth in one hand and a plate in the other, the smell of detergent and chicken and, standing so close to her, of Luka, she realized that she was, at this moment as happy as she could remember being, except that she wished very much that he would kiss her. Which was OK because at the moment she thought it he did just that.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He caught her sharp intake of breath and hesitated.  
  
"No?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
His kiss was tender, gentle, unassuming, as much a question as a statement. And not at all what she wanted, no, not at all. She let the plate fall to the floor with a clatter and, bringing her arms up around his neck, she opened her mouth to him. Whatever he had intended the kiss to be it soon lost all hope of being anything but erotic. Abby took a step back, and then another, leading him into the apartment. He adjusted his hold on her and lifted her, so that now she bent her head to him, and like this he carried her into her bedroom where he removed first her clothes and then his own and took her, simply, directly. It seemed to Abby that every nerve in her body had been fine tuned for precisely this moment and she came almost immediately and didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and in the end did both while he rested his head in the curve of her neck and spoke her name, over and over and over. And when they grew cold she moved to pull the quilt around them and she told him then that she loved him, and he told her that he knew.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
She knew that he was awake; the warmth of his hand on her hip, of his breath on her neck made her smile. She ached from unaccustomed exertion and her smiled widened a little as she remembered last night. Luka would have to be careful of the shards of crockery which still littered the kitchen when he got up to make coffee, as she knew he would. But not yet, oh, no, not yet. They had such a very great deal of catching up to do. And when he pulled her close and brushed the hair from her face she opened her eyes and welcomed him home.  
  
  
  
  
  
It seemed to Luka that he had slept forever. A glance at the clock disabused him of this notion. He'd had all of three hours sleep. Abby's clock, Abby's night stand, Abby's bedroom, Abby's bed. And Abby, curled away from him, hair in total disarray. And no wonder, he thought, remembering the night.  
  
They'd returned in the night to the language they'd always found easiest, when words had been dangerous things to snare and betray them. But if before their bed had staged Beckett, as perplexing as it was intriguing, punctuated by the disquieting pauses of their daily interaction, last night had been Shakespeare; measured, complex, engrossing; tender, ferocious, moving and terrifying by turns. Familiar and endlessly new; barely a word, a line, a scene out of place. And now he pulled her close and brushed the hair back from her face and saw the welcome in her eyes. Encore.  
  
What do you think, Sweetheart?  
  
There was no answer; there never was.  
  
Luka smiled. It didn't matter. He didn't need one.  
  
  
  
THE END.  
  
Never posted any disclaimers - so, the usual disclaimers apply. But Luka's family are mine, all mine, I tell you. 


	39. Epilogue

RECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES - Epilogue  
  
I never thanked Laurie for supplying the title of this story - so thanks Laurie; I owe you - when you write your first fic!  
  
  
  
"God, Luka what have I done?"  
  
He stood very still, watching her, the cold of the raw February day still clinging to his coat.  
  
"What have I done? I never meant for this to happen. How did this happen?"  
  
"You don't remember?"  
  
She looked up at him then, misery personified. "I didn't mean for this to happen."  
  
She was sitting on the end of their bed, still in her night clothes at three in the afternoon, her hair dishevelled, eyes small in the pale face. She'd been crying. He sat down cautiously next to her and took her hand. She flinched at the coldness of his touch.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"I can't fix it this time, can I? I can't go away for three months and come back and start over."  
  
"I don't think so. Not this time. I mean - - - the problem would still be here. Only bigger."  
  
"I've been living in a fool's paradise."  
  
"No."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"No. I won't let you say that." He reached carefully for her other hand and uncurled her fingers from around the empty bottle, setting it on the floor at his side.  
  
"You should go and take a shower, put some clothes on. You'll feel better and then we can talk about this."  
  
"What is there to say?"  
  
"Go. Go on."  
  
He watched her as she walked listlessly from the room and let out a sigh. Picking the bottle up he made his way down to the kitchen and surveyed the disarray there. He knew this was coming, had seen the signs, they'd been clear enough. He should have talked to her sooner about this, but it wasn't easy to broach the subject. Luka gathered up dirty dishes and set about cleaning up. A sound from upstairs made him stop and he took the stairs two at a time.  
  
Abby had dressed in jeans and sweatshirt and her hair still dripped, leaving dark marks on the fabric.  
  
"It's OK" he said. "It's OK. Dry your hair." She obeyed mutely.  
  
"You feel better?" he asked from the window.  
  
"Yes. No."  
  
"Which?"  
  
"I feel cleaner."  
  
"Cleaner is good. It's a start."  
  
"I guess."  
  
"It is."  
  
"I don't think I can do this, Luka."  
  
"You can. You knew it would be hard. It's always hard. But you aren't alone."  
  
"I feel it."  
  
"I know. I think everyone does. It will pass. One day at a time."  
  
"I can't do this. I've always known it, even when I was a kid I knew it. What am I going to do?"  
  
"Stick with it Abby. It's all there is." He came and sat beside her again, not able now to take her hand. "And you know, Rosa has something you never did."  
  
"What?" she asked, looking down at the dark eyes and hair of the child he was holding in the crook of his arm.  
  
"Us."  
  
THE END (for now).  
  
Well, come on, someone had to counteract the welter of Carbabies (tm gondee) elsewhere on this site! 


End file.
